


5150

by Harpalyce



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harpalyce/pseuds/Harpalyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all starts on one December 28th when Phoenix Wright gets a call from Miles Edgeworth, informing him that Edgeworth is going away - permanently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stormy Weather

Nick hadn’t realized he had slipped off into sleep until the phone was ringing right by his ear. For a moment he blearily wondered why, exactly, he had decided that the top of his threadbare couch was a good place for his cell phone. His head seemed as sluggish and full as his stomach. Not that he didn’t appreciate the fact that Pearl and Maya had seemed determined to drag him along and have a ‘proper Christmas dinner’, even if the ham and the bauble-studded tree seemed out of place at the Fey manor, but he had dozed all the way back on the train before promptly collapsing on his couch. He never knew that digesting was such a huge chore. And they had sent him home with leftovers.  _All_  of the leftovers. He was probably going to have to invite Larry over to help eat them, just in case he was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of ham.

But…

He had to smack his mouth, his tongue dry and rubbery from snoring, before he could answer. “Hello?"

"Wright."

"Edgeworth?" His brow furrowed a moment before he gave a relieved laugh at the other man’s easygoing tone. “If you’re calling to wish me a Merry Christmas, you’re a couple days late."

"No, no. Not quite like that. I’m just calling to let you know I’m going on a trip, that’s all." He sounded incredibly calm, even cheerful, and it made Nick smile reflexively.

"A winter vacation, huh? Renting a private island or something?" He teased gently.

"Something, yes. I just didn’t want you to worry, since you won’t be seeing me again."

The good mood that had been settling in around him froze in Nick’s throat. His smile slid off his face as his brow furrowed, and he leaned forward, no longer relaxing against the back of the couch. "…What?"

"I’ve given it careful consideration, and it is absolutely the best solution. And I’m calling you directly to let you know. I don’t want a repeat of the… ambiguity with the note I left a few years ago." Nick knew the one.  _Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death._  Reference to it was not making him any less nervous. “I’ve left a few things for you at my apartment. Feel free to pick them up at your leisure. I’m sure you have the address."

"…Miles, where are you going?" He was careful to use the other man’s first name instead of his last.

"It’s not very important, Wright. It’s just the best decision for this situation. And I called because I didn’t want you to worry."

"I’m not kidding, Miles, you need to tell me - what is all this about -"

He still sounded so damnably calm. There had always been some tension in his voice, some nervousness, an edge that he could sharpen to a point. Nick had heard it time and time again, using that timbre in his voice as a knife to eviscerate a witness on the stand and even make him tremble. But it simply wasn’t there anymore, instead replaced with outright relief.

"Like I said - you don’t need to worry. Things are going to be perfectly fine. Goodbye, Nick. And thank you."

"Miles,  _wait_ -!"

The dial tone hummed back at him. He drew the cell phone away from his ear to stare at it blearily, pressing the end call button and returning its display to the general default screen. Time, date, the usual…

He squinted for a moment. Wait.  _Date_.

It was December 28th.

The lump of ice in his stomach waited for his head to catch up, shuffling through mental filing cabinets before finally seizing on why that date made him nervous. It clicked together, and when it did, he cursed at his cell phone, scrambling up and grabbing his coat as quickly as he could.

-

_Please let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong._

He kept up the mental chant as he stared out of the taxi cab window, tapping his foot out of nervous energy. In fact, it took the second time before the cab driver’s question reached him.

"Hey, buddy, you still back there? …I was askin’, ain’t you that attorney fella?"

"Me? Yeah. I’m, uh, I’m a defense attorney. Phoenix Wright."

"You  _are_  that fella! Yeah, your name’s been all in the newspapers lately. About that big case awhile back. The one with that pompous-lookin’ german guy."

"Oh? I, uh…" He looked to his cell phone again. It was ringing quietly before getting yet another  _message forwarded to voicemail_. He hung up and tried Edgeworth’s number yet again. “I’ve been visiting, uh, relatives lately, so I haven’t been keeping up. Was there a new development or what?"

"Nah, they just did a retrospective. True crime rag I read had a whole spread on it, an’ a commemorative cover, since they finally knocked off the german lout a few days ago. But I bet you know all about that, yeah?"

He blinked solidly, actually looking away from his cell phone. “Actually, I, uh, don’t. I’ve been busy with other work lately. …The death sentence actually went through?" He’d heard hints about it, of course, given von Karma’s confession. But he had expected it to be tied up for decades at least, given Germany’s declaration of the death sentence as inhumane, and von Karma’s status as a German citizen. To be perfectly honest, the thought of von Karma rotting in a cell while officials argued about extradition until he died of old age was something that sat quite well on Nick’s conscience. He didn’t know quite what to do with the other possibility.

"Oh, yeah! I mean, there was a little fuss, but I guess there always is in cases where they get sent to the chair, ya know? They finally fried the rat bastard a couple days ago. Christmas Eve, I think. Kinda funny timing, but I ain’t gonna argue the result." The taxi driver grinned toothily at him. “You must be pleased as punch, bein’ the one who figured out the truth behind the whole thing, yeah?"

"Uh…" His voice shook a little. “Sure. …hold on." His cell phone chirped at him, and he brought it to his ear. “Hey, Larry. …Yeah, he called me too, about fifteen minutes ago. …So he called you first, then me? …I’m just wanting to make sure I’ve got the times right. Yes, I think it’s serious. No, Larry, you don’t need to start driving or anything. I’m going to check it out. I mean, I could be wrong." He turned his head to stare out the window as they drove deeper into the thick of the city. It was pretty enough, he supposed. Everyone’s Christmas decorations were still up, festive yet out of place, pinpricks of glimmer from lights reflecting through ice and in muddled puddles of half-melted snow. The holidays were over and everything seemed tired in a way he hadn’t noticed before. "…Yeah, I’m still here. I’ll call you back when I figure out what’s going on, ok? Promise."

He was silently thankful that the taxi cab driver seemed to recognize he was not in the mood to talk.

—

Edgeworth’s residence was something Nick didn’t quite have a word for. After all, calling it an apartment felt like an insult, since that meant grouping it with his own meager two-bedrooms-one-bath-half-kitchen. Sure, Edgeworth had neighbors, but the building also had a  _footman_. And there were definitely smaller houses that a family of four fit in than this one man’s apartment.

There really was some difference between a prosecutor’s salary and a defense attorney’s, he mused darkly.

101, 102… He jogged down the richly carpeted hallway, trying to not catch too many glares from the footman. 103. There it was. Mr. M. Edgeworth on the little golden plaque and everything. He sighed before reaching out to buzz the doorbell - no answer, like he expected. It was going to take some convincing to get the front desk to use the master key, but -

His hand on the doorknob slipped easily, and the front door opened. Oh. It was unlocked.

Another wave of dread hit him like cold ocean water.

The foyer was very tastefully decorated, well-polished dark wood and marble tiles on the floor. It looked less like a home that someone lived in and more like some interior designer’s dream, everything put just-so in exquisite neatness. Tinny violins came from somewhere up the spiral staircase. He could barely hear the voice sing.

_I say I’ll move the mountains, and I’ll move the mountains…_

The singer continued to croon, and he vaguely placed the voice. Some old jazz standard. Maybe part of him had assumed that Edgeworth would play stereotypical opera music when alone, but this seemed to suit him more.

_The difficult I’ll do right now, the impossible will take a little while…_

"Edgeworth?" He called out, and received no answer. “Miles? …Hey, Miles, are you here?" Again, no answer. He did, however, see a spread that had been laid out on the kitchen table. Neat envelopes on good stationary. One addressed to him, one to Larry, one even to Inspector Gumshoe and Franziska von Karma, and one to an unfamiliar name - a Kay Faraday. They were clustered around a bottle of wine that looked painfully expensive, and a much larger envelope laid underneath them on the table.

The song ended, switching to something slightly more upbeat, and Nick couldn’t help but tap his foot to it out of instinct.

_All of me, why not take all of me?_

He moved a few more steps to the kitchen, squinting at the largest. It certainly looked official in its creamy envelope. Part of him expected it to be sealed with wax, given that it seemed to be Edgeworth style. There were definitely words written on it, at the bottom, in neat and fluid cursive.Now if he could just figure out what they said -

_Oh, your goodbye has left me with eyes that cry…_

‘The Last Will and Testament of Miles Edgeworth.’

Nick yelped out a few choice curses. The atmosphere of the house had demanded him to be quiet and respectful, even in a relaxed way, and now he officially did not give a damn as he ran back into the living room and made an expensive set of vases tremble on the mantle. “MILES!" The music was still floating down, slithering down the staircase with trembling jazz piano and swaying tempo. That’d be his first place to start. “MILES, WHERE ARE YOU?!" He took the spiral staircase’s steps by twos, gripping the ornate rail tightly, out of breath by the time he reached the top.

The stereo was one of the most elaborate he had ever seen. And he could catch a glimpse of the cover, set off to the side of the record table -  _Billie Holiday’s Greatest Hits_  (so THAT was her name, now he remembered!). The record itself spun lazily, pushing music out through the speakers. At least this room looked slightly more lived-in, though not by much. Nightstand, dresser, bed… Edgeworth laying on the bed….

_Good morning heartache, you ol’ gloomy sight_ …

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit -" Edgeworth was the most quietly calm Nick had ever seen him. His face was relaxed into almost a dreamy smile, even though he apparently had neatly made the bed before laying on top of it. “Miles? MILES!" He was limp as Nick shook him by the shoulders. “Come on, wake UP -" Nothing, not even a flinch. He slapped Edgeworth’s cheeks lightly, shouted in his face. “Wake UP!" Nothing. Just quiet calm.

_Good morning heartache, sit down…_

Phone, where’d he put his phone? He fumbled in his jacket pockets before flipping it out and finally taking the time to look at the nightstand. A picture of Miles, very small, with his father smiling at the camera. Franziska and Miles on some vacation, with him smirking around a glass of wine and her grinning at the camera while raising her shiraz in salute. A glass of water. Mostly empty. A large bottle of prescription medicine. Completely empty.

"Hello? - Yeah, I need an ambulance, um - Magnolia Rise apartments, I don’t know the address, but it’s apartment 103, top floor." His mouth was running awfully dry, and his voice was trembling, but he kept talking. “My - my friend - he called me about a half-hour ago, I came over to his place, and - he’s, um, he won’t wake up, he’s swallowed an entire bottle of…" He picked up the bottle and turned it around in his hands. “Sop… Sopoziol? It says on here it’s for, um, muscle cramps. I think."

_Stop haunting me now; can’t shake you nohow…_

_“_ Is he what? I, uh - I don’t know. Hold on." He juggled the cell phone in his hands again, ending up pressing it between his shoulder and ear. His hands probed softly, against Miles’ chest, before deciding that the layers of cravat and vest and shirt were too much to deal with, then hovering by his face, waiting to feel a lick of moisture and warmth. Nick gulped reflexively as he pressed two fingers against the other man’s neck, trying to feel for something he hoped was there. “I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s breathing, I mean. I can’t feel a pulse, either." More gulping. His head was swimming, thoughts buzzing too fast for him to grab ahold and wrangle into coherence. “No, I’ve never been trained. I watched a video once, though, so I know - I remember, I mean, I remember how - fifteen to one? Okay. I can do that." He was aware of how his voice was shaking, but powerless to do anything about it. “I’m okay. I’m calm. …They’ll be five minutes? That’s - that’s good. Thank you."

Everything seemed to be happening all at once yet also excruciatingly slowly. Out of reflex, he pulled the cell phone away from his ear and pressed the end call button. The operator was just pouring more words into his ear to make his thoughts more clouded, anyway. He had to concentrate. What had the video said, exactly? Maya had made him watch it - that seemed decades and decades in the past, now - something about workplace safety - both hands, on top of one another, about there - that seemed right - of course his damn cravat would fall in the way, wouldn’t it, but he couldn’t waste any more time -  _one, two, three -_

Behind him the record spat out a moment of static between songs. Then the snaky trombone and crooning started again.

_Don’t know why there’s no sun in the sky; stormy weather…_

No, he told himself firmly. Focus on the details. Focus on the beat you were given, focus on striking just the right place, focus on trying to mimic that old video from years ago. If he stopped to think…  _thirteen, fourteen, fifteen_ …  _Oh, I’m so weary all the time…_

Fifteen to one. Or was it fifteen to two? His head was still swimming. In either case it was time for a breath, that was how this worked, and he knew that much. As long as he kept thinking in the abstract, he could do this.

But it was very hard to look at Edgeworth’s face and stay in the abstract.

No, this was the man Phoenix Wright had spent so much of his life chasing. The one he gave up airy dreams of being a painter for and picked up heavy law books for. The one he had dedicated many long nights in the library to. He could still see the same face of the little kid who had stood up to defend him in grade school, only to disappear away to Germany after tragedies. And he could definitely see the face he had stared down in court time after time, only to save him from false allegations.

Now he was so quiet and still. Peaceful. Nick knew what he had to do, but seeing the look on Edgeworth’s face - serene -  _happy_  - made it feel like a betrayal, and he didn’t know why.

He pushed Edgeworth’s lips open and forced a breath between them anyway.


	2. Good Morning Heartache

You don't have time to be upset, Nick mentally chanted. You don't have time to be upset.

His thoughts weren't any more settled. They swirled in his head, sticking together, getting snagged on worries and anxieties, becoming more and more tangled. In half an hour he knew that he'd likely have a pounding headache to contend with. But he had to keep going. A taxi to the hospital. He'd follow the ambulance. Before he even asked the footman nodded and told him there would be a taxi for him shortly.

At least other people were being nice about it, he supposed. One of the paramedics had clapped him on the shoulder and told him he'd done well keeping the correct pace with CPR. It was a dull and cold comfort. Everything seemed dull and cold, actually. As if he wasn't really there. Perhaps if he wished hard enough he'd end up flinching awake in bed from a nightmare. Nick could hope, anyway. But first he had things to do.

The paramedic had mentioned giving Edgeworth's family a call. Nick hadn't the heart to tell the nice woman that Edgeworth didn't have any, really. But he'd taken Edgeworth's cell phone with him just in case. Phone numbers. Surprisingly few. Larry's was there, as was his own. That was gratifying, in its own way, he supposed. Gumshoe, that Kay Faraday again, and... ah. There. Franziska von Karma. A long, foreign number. He considered, for a moment, using Edgeworth's phone - surely the other man had some sophisticated international roaming plan - but that seemed somehow blasphemous. So he labored to type in the number into his own cellphone. It rang once, twice, and again; there was just enough time for Nick to hope that maybe he'd just missed Franziska and he could leave someone else to tell her -

"Mr. Phoenix Wright." From the sound of her voice, either she had been deeply asleep, or she was halfway through a bottle of wine. "If you've called to gloat about Papa's execution, you're a few days late." All right. Definitely wine.

"Ms. von Karma, I'm not -"

"Then you're a foolish fool wasting my time -"

He realized talking over her was impolite but he did so anyway. "Miles Edgeworth just tried to kill himself."

She went very quiet.

"He, uh - I just found him, I mean. I don't know if he succeeded or not. They're taking him to the General Hospital here." He reached up to pinch his nose as he spoke, as if that would somehow help his voice stop shaking too much. "One of the paramedics said I should get in touch with his family members, and... I guess that's you, mostly."

The line was silent for a moment. Then Franziska spoke again, her voice as near to 'meek' as Nick could have ever imagined. "Thank you. I'll... I will see about catching a plane."

Thankfully, she then hung up. Nick wasn't sure either of them could have stood more of that conversation. Now on to the rest of Edgeworth's contacts... Gumshoe, well, he knew that the 911 operators gossiped with the police dispatcher and the paramedics gossiped with the patrol cops directly.  It was quite likely that the word was already out and Gumshoe already knew, but Nick supposed he'd call Gumshoe in a moment just in case. Larry, well, he could call Larry in the cab. Mostly because there was a worried sob knotted in his chest and he knew the more he spoke the closer it would get to actually escaping. Larry wouldn't hold tears against him. If anything they could blubber into the phone together because damn it all, Edgeworth was supposed to be the one who was always well-composed, wasn't he? So that was settled. And that left...

He had hit the call button before he was even fully aware of doing so, but he brought the cell phone to his ear and waited nervously, keeping an eye out for the promised taxi. Three rings later, it went to voicemail, just the standard default greeting that read out the number in a computerized tone and told him to leave a message after the beep.

"Is this Kay Faraday?" He squinted for a moment against the wind. Had it really been such a bitter chill earlier? "Uh, we haven't met. I'm Phoenix Wright - one of Miles Edgeworth's friends - um..." Nick sucked in a cold breath. "Edgeworth tried to kill himself earlier this evening. I mean, he might have succeeded, I just... nevermind. They're taking him to General Hospital. I just thought you should know." How exactly did you end a call like this? Everything seemed too cheerful.

So he simply hung up.

The cab was there, anyway. He couldn't stay still for too long. If he just kept busy, he'd be all right, Nick told himself. Just keep going forward.

"General Hospital, please..."

\--

"Shi-Long Lang speaking."

It was midmorning in the Zheng Fa offices, and as soon as Lang answered his cell phone, his subordinates around him froze in curiosity. Perhaps his wolfpack had been trimmed down substantially, but there were still a few loyal to him who hung off his every word. He seemed more tired these days. A man had a right to look tired after a betrayal the like of Shih-na's, they figured. Besides, Interpol kept him busy. Nobody had caught on to exactly how suspiciously frequent those trips to Germany had become.

They did notice, however, how he immediately switched from his native tongue to English as he cupped a hand over his cell phone, dropped his voice to a murmur, and went quickly for the stairwell for a moment of privacy.

"Hey. Franziska. Calm down." There was a nervous edge to his voice that he hoped the people around him didn't hear. The door closed behind him, a solid thud that echoed up and down the stairway. "...Look, you don't need to apologise. We've been through this. Things got... complicated. And that's fine."

Complicated, Lang thought, was something of an understatement. In Borginia, shortly after they first met, it was simple. Two adults entering a consensual and mutually beneficial arrangement. Of course he didn't trust her then. She was a prosecutor. And she didn't trust him, either. But that somehow made taking out all the frustration at the end of the day even better.

He'd told himself that it was simple lust. And he knew she'd told herself the same. They made excuses upon excuses.

Lang admitted he was too honest for his own good sometimes. Two weeks ago was certainly one of those times. There had been a dull ache growing in his chest, and that became horror at the realization he completely trusted her. Or, rather, there was a space where horror should have been. She was a  _prosecutor_ , after all. But instead there was just something tender and bleeding, as if the bitterness had been scooped out and replaced with something else.

Of course the next time they managed to find each other in Berlin, after fantastic-as-usual sex and several glasses of excellent whisky, he'd let it slip. At which point she had gone very pale and exited the hotel room after promptly getting dressed. He had expected that to be the end of it. He was perpetually surprised that it wasn't.

After all, increasing evidence that Franziska von Karma had a heart underneath all that ice was sincerely unexpected.

He jogged down the stairs even as he talked. "Hold on. Just take a deep breath and explain that to me again." Lang's face drew into a thin frown as he paused halfway down one step before carefully finishing it. "...I see. ...It's going to be a few days wrapping up here, but I'll be there as soon as possible. - No, Franziska, I want to be there." He cleared his throat softly. "If we're going to try being more than just... acquaintances with benefits... I should start acting like it."

Instead of taking the last few steps outside into the courtyard, he leaned against the wall beside the door, looking up into the stairwell. "Yeah, I'll tell you when I head out. ...Sure. ...See you then." He pulled the cell phone away, flipping it closed, and out of unconscious habit held it up near his chest - near his heart - before putting it away.

It was all getting more complicated with every step.


	3. God Bless The Child

By the time the sunrise was barely starting to creep up the horizon through the clinical hospital windows, Nick was too tired to be ashamed of his red eyes anymore. He could blame it on Larry later. Usually he was good at resisting Larry's hysterics, but in this case it had been infectious, and they'd spent a good ten minutes trying to hold a conversation through the snotty sobs before mutually agreeing to hang up and give it another go later. Maybe in another few hours he could expect a call from Franziska demanding directions from the airport, and he was already praying to any and all deities available for patience in crisis. At least a sympathetic nurse had let it slip that Edgeworth was still alive. The rest of them were a solid wall of the same response.  _No, HIPPA regulations. We can't answer any questions unless you're family._

Maybe if more of his mind was free, he'd spare a moment to be worried about himself. As it was he stared dully at the ceiling, rubbing his eyes and then holding his hands there to block out the lights.

"Hey, pal. Two sugars and one cream, right?"

As he sat up, Nick allowed one selfish thought to flicker across his mind. Just how bad did he even look? If  _Gumshoe_ , of all people, was starting to be worried about him... Well, perhaps not. They both looked more or less equally miserable. It was just that Gumshoe had offered to go buy coffee - not the watered-down sorry excuse for it that the hospital cafe sold, but instead something decent from a local place three blocks away. Nick had insisted that Gumshoe used his money in payment for the legwork. (Gumshoe seemed awfully relieved about that.) So he mustered an exhausted smile and took the coffee, murmuring a "thanks".

One good thing about the cold weather was that apparently a brisk three-block walk in the wind cooled a tall-coffee-two-sugars-one-cream to just the perfect drinking temperature. Nick swore he meant to give a dignified sip, but that turned into a series of gulps. The warmth running down his throat was something to concentrate in. And the caffeine, well... Maybe that would make his head a little clearer. Because right now he felt an awful lot like someone with an old jalopy of a car, kicking the bumpers and yelling at the thing to start already. Except instead of a car, it was his brain. Or something. The rush of coffee finally hit him and he blinked several times before giving a long sigh.

Gumshoe didn't say anything more. Nick looked to his coffee as if the secret to life was written somewhere on the top. They'd exhausted possible conversation topics a few hours ago, of course. Gumshoe was who he had called before Larry, and he'd thanked Nick about fifteen times over for letting him know, even if by that point someone on the gossip chain of policemen and paramedics had already told him.

At least the coffee was good, he supposed.

His cell phone in his pocket chirped. A text message. That actually made him smile out of reflex. Under Maya's care, more and more of the open world had been sneaking into Fey Manor. Pearl had her own cell phone, now. Or, rather, it was one she shared with Maya, but Pearl had it most of the time. As soon as she woke up she had a habit of tapping out a good morning greeting to him which was, quite frankly, so adorable it hurt. Usually Nick saw the good morning message when his alarm went off a few hours later, and always replied, of course, even if it was just with a short greeting.  _Good morning, Mr. Nick!_

 _Good morning, Pearls_.

He realized the lack of an exclamation mark was not as cheerful as his usual greeting was, but quite frankly he wasn't feeling cheerful at all, so it would do. Three sips of coffee later the phone rang, and he picked it up without needing to even check the caller ID.

"Mr. Nick! You're up early! ...Is it okay that I called?"

"Yeah, Pearls, it's okay." He set down his coffee to rub at his eyes.

"...Are you all right?"

"Just tired." No, he did not want to explain to a little girl that he'd gotten a call from one of his oldest friends saying goodbye before rushing over to his house and trying for what seemed several ages to push breath into his lungs and force his heart into beating again. Even if Pearl  _was_ growing up. "A lot of... a lot of things happened last night." Oh, damn, there went his voice again. Trembling despite himself.

"Mr. Nick...? What's going on?"

"Don't worry about me, okay? I'm fine. I've just got to go now for a bit. When Maya gets up, will you have her call me? ...Thank you. ...Okay. Bye now."

He realized he had been holding his breath after he pressed the end call button, and let it out through pursed lips in a long sigh. "I'm gonna... stretch my legs," he declared to nobody in particular. It was halfway down the hallway before he realized that he'd forgotten his coffee.

Hospitals were surprisingly good for aimless wandering. He could let his feet do the thinking, just turning corner after corner and keeping conscious enough to not go through any doors marked 'staff only'. There were plenty of signs, so he was sure that he could find his way back - eventually. Until then he could give the coffee some time to soak into his brain and try to clear his head by focusing on small things. Tiny beeps coming from different rooms. The clunking hum and whirr of a distant imaging machine. Soft chatter between nurses who stopped when he passed (one even giggled in a shy, flustered manner). The steady pace of his shoes against the tile.

Eventually tile became faded burgundy carpet, and he actually raised his head to look at where he was.

Oh. The Hospital Chapel. A confused and bland little space. There were some wooden pews, and something like an altar up front, but the wooden cross was sharing the space with a confusing number of symbols of other faiths. The architecture - especially the haphazard, abstract stained glass window - spoke firmly of its 1970's origin. Though there was  _one_ thing that was more modern. A bright orange extension cord wheeled out to the front-left pew, ending in a pileup of electronic plugs, all of them full of... cell phone chargers. One of nearly every type, it seemed. Well, Nick couldn't turn down an invitation like that. It was a very modern sort of charity, but one he definitely wasn't too proud to use; he had been making call after call and all his chargers were either at home or the office. So he plugged his phone in, and it gave a cheerful sort of beep, seeming content to start filling up its battery again.

He did try to sit politely in the pew by it for a time. But his head was heavy and the space was so quiet and still... He ended up laying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Old spackle. Not anything particularly interesting to look at.

"I don't get it," he whispered. "I thought you were okay." He only realized he was talking to Edgeworth after he said it. "You... you  _said_ you were okay. You said that. You even seemed happy."

A long moment of silence.

"If you'd just... If you'd called me and told me and been  _honest_ with me, I could've... I don't know what I could have done. But something. I would have thought of something."

He pursed his lips and sighed to keep from crying. And, eventually, he dozed off into sleep.

-

His cell phone chirped some time later, letting him know it had gorged itself on electricity. A bleary-eyed thirty minute walk back to the one particular waiting room then ensued. His coffee would surely be cold by now, but he was still looking forward to the rest of it. Maybe even a cup of the watery stuff the cafe sold. At least he wasn't stooping so low as to consider buying some caffinated soda and microwaving it for a hot caffinated beverage, but the hospital coffee was coming close...

As soon as he stepped into the waiting room, he noticed two things. One was that Gumshoe was gone. The other was the person arguing stridently with the nurse. It wasn't everyday that Nick saw someone who could probably take on Maya in a 'most unique dress sense' competition. The key in her hair was a nice touch. Nick assumed, anyway. There were plenty of good reasons why he stuck to wearing suits, and all of them had to do with his lack of fashion.

" _Please_! You've got to let me go see him!"

"I'm sorry, Miss... what did you say your name was?"

"Kay! I'm Kay Faraday!" This was enough to make Nick wake up a little more. So that's who the mysterious name in Edgeworth's cell phone was.

"Right, Miss Faraday. Like I said, I'm very sorry, but it's family only at this point -"

"I'm his assistant! That has to count for something, doesn't it?" Her voice went slightly squeaky at the end. Part of Nick grinned wickedly and did a small victory dance while noting down the details for the next time Edgeworth made a sly comment about how Nick always seemed to be followed by teenage girls. The other part of him understood the way the girl's voice was breaking all too well. And besides, strangers were just friends you hadn't met yet, weren't they?

"Yes, it does, but not enough. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

The nurse left the girl sighing at the entrance to the staff-only doors. Nick took some steps forward, clearing his throat. "Kay Faraday?"

She jumped at the mention of her name, and her eyes went wide. "Oh! You're, um, Wright, right?"

"Yeah, the one who left a message for you." He held out his hand for a shake.

"It's good to meet you," she chirped. "Edgeworth talks about you sometimes. I mean, when he doesn't think I'm listening. It's kind of silly." Nick felt the start of a blush burning at the back of his neck and desperately hoped she didn't notice. Her cheerfulness abruptly slid off her face as she reminded herself. "...Sorry, sorry. I'm not all that good at being serious yet."

"It's fine. I think both of us wish we were meeting under better circumstances."

Neither of them really knew what to say to that, though Kay looked at her feet and seemed preoccupied with examining her shoes. Nick cleared his throat again. It was hard to figure out what next - to fish out an appropriate string of words. Etiquette books didn't usually cover this sort of thing, after all. But Nick knew with dogged determination that if he stopped, he was going to fall to pieces. "Listen, I was going to go get another cup of coffee. If you want one, I can bring one back, or..."

"I'll come with you," Kay said quickly. "I don't really... like waiting rooms."

Nick understood perfectly, even if he wished he didn't.


	4. Deep Song

"You're a... what?"

"A great thief!" She sat up a little more proudly in her seat, grinning wolfishly. "The Yatagaratsu!"

"And you work with Edgeworth." It was a relief to laugh, in a way, and Nick truly could not help himself. He dissolved into chuckling as he wiped at his eyes.

"It's not like we don't get along!" Kay huffed. "I mean, I don't steal anything in front of him. The great Yatagaratsu only steals the truth, after all," she nearly boasted. "Not, you know, petty material things."

He took a long sip of his tepid, weak coffee as she brought a packet of sweets out of her bag and placed them furtively on the table. There was a certain irony that the hospital gift shop had an entire section devoted to unhealthy snacks and even 'bouquets' of candy bars, but it meant fewer things the cafe had to deal with, leaving more room for perishable fruit cups and sandwiches. And it was a fairly decent selection of cheap candy.

"Yeah? And just how did you get those, then?" Nick noted slyly, looking down at the bag of chocolate caramels between them.

"Well, I've got to keep in practice," Kay answered while looking around shiftily. She noted how Nick's eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly before looking guilty. "Aw, don't be like that. I left three dollars near the register on my way out, and the package only cost two-fifty."

"Don't worry, I wasn't going to turn you in. Defense, not prosecution, remember?" He smiled at her, feeling threadbare and tired, but it was at least a smile. They had a short silent conversation - he looked down at the candy, then to her, and she nodded, pushing the bag closer to the middle for him to take one. He relished the small sweet treat, even as it got stuck in his teeth.

"How long have you known Mr. Edgeworth, anyway? I mean, I know you're famous rivals in the courtroom..."

It took another sip of coffee for his teeth to feel like they had unstuck properly. "He's the reason I became a lawyer, actually."

"So you could challenge him?" Kay's eyes went slightly wide, and she slumped forward at the table, resting her chin in her hands.

"Not quite. ...We met in school." A sharp pang in his chest. All right, that was perhaps a bit too close. He could tell embarrassing grade-school stories of Edgeworth once the man himself was there to glare sourly at Nick all the way through. "Shouldn't you be in school, by the way?"

"Even if I was, it'd still be Christmas break!" She pulled a face at him before relaxing. "...No, I'm going to start at Midway Polytechnic in the spring semester. Mr. Edgeworth didn't really think that I should spend my time learning to be the Yatagaratsu... and I guess he's right about having a second career." Kay still didn't look particularly pleased at the idea. "A fashion designer, or something. I don't know. ...but he set up a lot of money for me, in a trust, to pay for the tuition and things." Her voice dropped shyly soft. "I don't know why. But it's nice to not have to worry, I guess. I was going to surprise him for New Year's, to thank him..."

He started to wonder exactly what had been in those envelopes. After all, the more he heard, the more it seemed Edgeworth had put things exactly in order. Edgeworth may just as well have left a script of what he wanted - everyone not mourning long, reading their individual messages tucked in those envelopes while sharing the good bottle of red wine he had left in the center. This had been planned. Meticulously so. Down to the very last detail. Nick's reaction had been the one variable he wasn't able to control, and the only reason they were sitting in a hospital instead of a funeral parlor's reception area.

Both of them were quiet for a beat. Kay stared down at the candies on the table, fingers flexing in nervous energy before going to arrange the candy in a neat pattern before her. Three rows, offset like a checkerboard, one, blank, one, blank, each intertwining space cornered in on all sides. It made him anxious to see, for some reason.

Nick had slightly more practice talking to young women, thanks to Maya, so he filled in the space between them as best he could.

"So, fashion design, huh...?"

\--

There was no kind way to put it. Franziska looked exactly like she had just gotten off an airplane, expecting first-class seating but having to take coach in an unexpected ticket snafu, spending the entire time sniffling distractedly into a window and trying to dodge the questions of a tourist in a cheap t-shirt before finally rounding on him and snapping that no, she did not care how pretty he thought her hair color was, because her brother was dying, or dead, and she was going to legitimately kill him if he continued. And then he had mumbled something in his nasal Nebraska accent about how she was beautiful even when she was mad, and she had lunged at him attempting to jab out his eyes with her well-manicured nails, because of course, of _course_ her whip had to be checked into luggage, and then the flight crew proceeded to be very testy towards her even after they had let the tourist change seats. And then the taxi-driver had been over-jovial, and by that point it had been thirteen hours (with a stop for refueling in Atlanta) of sniffing back her tears and feeling like her stomach was going to churn and tear itself out of her and crawl up her throat, thirteen hours of wearing the same clothes and the same makeup with a smudge on her eyeliner on the left-hand side, thirteen hours of wanting to scream but staying quiet.

Franziska looked exactly like she had done all of those things, which is to say, she looked like hell, and damn well knew it.

So she was glad that Mr. Phoenix Wright was out of the room when she finally found the right wing of the hospital and then cornered one of the nurses. Kay and Nick came back from a breakfast walk around the time that she was getting into a full argument with said nurse. "I'm sorry ma'am, but these documents are in German - I don't know whether they're forged or not -"

"Then give me a moment, you damned fool." She whipped out her cell phone. "...Yes, legal services? Here. Talk sense into one of your employees." The nurse looked suspicious but eventually did take Franziska's cell phone. Nick could hear the muffled conversation coming through the cell phone speaker from across the room - apparently it was not the nurse's best day. 

He paled before giving Franziska back her cell phone. "My, uh... my apologies. I'll go get Dr. Hayes now."

Franziska pointedly did not turn to face them. Nick cleared his throat after a few moments, looking like he was about to speak, and she spoke with a curt fury without turning. "Mr. Phoenix Wright, you foolish fool, if you dare say anything about my appearance, I will -"

"I wasn't!" Nick realized he sounded slightly panicked and gulped softly. "I mean, I just wanted to offer you one of these, uh, chocolate caramels. Kay and I are on our third bag by now."

She blinked a few times before finally turning to see Nick offering a handful out to her. Delicately, she took exactly one, unwrapping it carefully before popping it into her mouth. It was a simple little kindness that she didn't quite know what to do with, so she fell silent.

Nick and Kay exchanged a glance. Nick shrugged; Kay shrugged back. Franziska von Karma was an enigma all on her own, and definitely a problem for another day.

A tired-looking man in a white coat finally came through the doors, and he greeted them all with a smile. "Franziska von Karma?" She nodded; they shook hands. "Dr. Damien Hayes. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances. If you'd like to step over here, I'll do my best to explain any questions and -"

"Anything you say to me, you can also say to them." Her voice was tired and she barely moved her head to nod at Kay and Nick. It was a pleasant surprise, but Nick stood a little straighter, looking quietly eager to hear what was going on.

For a moment Dr. Hayes seemed hesitant before nodding. "Sure. Uh... Well. Mr. Edgeworth is stable for now, so there's no immediate worry," he stressed first thing. (Nick felt something start to unknot within him, and he caught the barest sigh of relief coming from Franziska.) "The biggest danger now is making sure liver function remains normal. Sopoziol is a fairly new drug, but in testing it's been shown to be safe. We're keeping him sedated just in case - it's better if he sleeps this off, more or less. But his chances of survival now are very, very good, thanks in no small part to you, from what I hear -" Dr. Hayes nodded to Nick, and it took a few long moments for Nick to realize that the gesture was towards him at all. He made some small noise underneath his breath of mild surprise.

"My recommendation at this point may be somewhat unpopular with all of you. ...But this is going to take a few days to work through Mr. Edgeworth's system. The best thing that you can do right now for him is go home - or to your hotel, whichever - and get some rest."

Dr. Hayes, Nick noted, had a remarkably kind smile. And that was a prescription he was quite happily to follow through.

Franziska, however, returned with a cup of tepid coffee from downstairs to sit in the waiting room even as Nick prepared to leave. "Er... Ms. von Karma?"

She didn't look at him, instead sipping her coffee. "Franziska, if you must."

"You're going to stay?"

A long pause. "Yes."

"Oh. ...Are you sure? Because -"

"Yes. I am absolutely sure. And before you ask, no, I do not need anything." Another sip of coffee, and she finally looked over at him. "...Although I would be happy to finish up any more of those chocolate caramels that you have."

Well, it wasn't quite friendship, but as Nick stumbled out of the hospital's artificial light into the sunny outdoors, he reflected that perhaps they could stop being dire enemies for awhile. It was something. He wouldn't say yet that he could slap an unburdened smile on his face or sleep without fretting or that the gnawing worry in the pit of his stomach had completely disappeared. ...but it was something.


	5. Mise en abyme

_You have to walk softly because the hill is sleeping. You don't know how the hill is sleeping, but you are confident in this: that's why you took off your shoes before you walked into the field of wheat, leaving them at the edge as if the farm was a house and you had to be a good guest._

_You are dreaming, of course. You know this. In a few hours you will realize that none of this makes sense (yet it means something you have to find), and you will stare out of the window and wonder how many of the hills out there are sleeping, too. And then you will wish with an aching sincerity that your sister was here still, so she could tell you what you have seen and how it all fits together. But you don't want to put that burden on Pearl, because she has too much to carry already.  So you will chew on your left thumbnail and look out the window and try not to worry (and fail spectacularly). But that is a few hours from now._

_Right now you know the hill is sleeping so you move soft and slow across the dirt. The golden wheat parts before you like water, and you put a hand out to skim the tops as they sway. The wind's picking up. Fat blue-black clouds sit at the horizon. It's only a matter of time until it starts to storm, but you aren't worried. In dreams like this, dreams that mean things, you never are. You just are observing with a quiet interest instead of panicking at all the strange things. The hill is dreaming, too, and you can tell from how the soles of your feet feel on the dirt._

_There is never a question of where you need to go. It's been right in front of you the entire time. At the top of the sleeping hill there is a house, or rather, part of a house. It is just one small room but you know about how it is part of a larger whole. There are only three walls: you can see straight into it. But you know what the rest of the house is like just like how you know the hill is sleeping. It's a modest place, by some standards. A place a rich family made, but not one inclined to show off their wealth, just one wanting to build something that was beautiful and practical and would be passed down. A place built by people who were thankful for their wealth and used it to be economical and oddly humble. Not gaudy and extravagant. Not the sort of place Manfred von Karma would approve of, because the von Karma name meant perfection and everyone needed to be constantly reminded of this fact. This was somewhere else entirely. Part of the room you can see is plainly decorated, with polished wooden floors and a wide set of windows that show the distant rainclouds continuing on and on._

_Of greatest importance (so the sleeping hill tells you) are two mirrors - one on either side of the room, directly across from one another, reflections tangling together in repeats of repeats. Someone sits in the middle on his knees, shoulders square, white kimono positioned just-so around him. He looks much like a pilgrim come to Kurain, albiet one with too much money. You step off of the dirt and onto the wooden floor, into the hall, and the wood is very cool on your bare feet. You can smell that it is going to rain soon. Thunder rumbles in the distance but you cannot see the flash of lightning through the windows. You do, however, know who these alabaster-clad shoulders belong to._

_"...Mr. Edgeworth?"_

_He doesn't turn around, but you didn't really expect him to. Instead you walk slowly on the cold wooden floor, being very careful where you place your feet. You do not show up in the mirrors. It is only reflections, and reflections, and Mr. Edgeworth trapped between them._

_His white kimono is very fine, and very formal, even if it does not have proper kamon embroidered upon it - though there is something, a european-style family crest, you suppose, done in whitework, but you cannot make it out. He has folded it right over left. Wrong way 'round. That, you think, is a very amateurish mistake, and rather unlike the Edgeworth that you know, the one who has faced down Nick with resolute fire in his eyes, the one that you are slightly frightened of every time he appears across the courtroom from you, the one that you have come to think kindly towards after seeing how he is with Nick outside of the courtroom._

_And his eyes are closed, and his face is slack, and it looks almost as if he is meditating. In any case he does not hear you snapping your fingers in front of his face. "Mr. Edgeworth?" You repeat his name a few times, for good measure._

_Thunder rumbles in the distance again. The air is thick, humid, heavy; you suck it in like syrup. It's going to rain any time now._

_You are not entirely sure why you crouch down in front of him. For awhile you stare at his eyelashes as if willing him to wake up from his meditations and look at you, but he does not. So you put a hand to his face. Maybe you were going to pinch his cheek; you aren't quite sure._

_Instead half of his face crumbles and comes away in your hand._

_If this was just a nightmare, instead of a message, you would have screamed then, but you do not. Instead you turn the piece of his head around in your hands. The inside is crumbling and dry, like cheap plaster that has not been made correctly. You can hear the rain starting to fall outside. One drop, then two, then a pause, odd stuttering staccato as if working up the courage to rain in earnest. You do not know why, but you are very clear about what you need to do next._

_You seize him by the neck, and pull. The rest of his head rolls off, and crumbles on the floor - lips here, cheek there, eye gone to powder ground into the wooden floorboards. Then you grab his shoulders, twisting them away from each other, and he crumbles at the collarbone into chalk, the fine silk kimono still clinging to him but now also in pieces. And now there's nothing between you and the chalky expanse of his chest and torso, so you cup your hands and dig. It gets under your fingernails. The rain's picking up now, finally not shy anymore. It settles into a steady rhythm you can work to. This chalk is awfully dry, and you think for a moment that it would benefit from the rain outside, but you are almost finished._

_The rain picks up to a crescendo. Thunder dully roars as your fingertips hit something hard. So you dig around it, and more bits of Edgeworth litter the floor as you toss them aside. A nub of rich brown peeks out of the white and you pull it out as delicately as an archaeologist at a dig. There is powder in every crevice of this fine wood-carving, so you blow it out as best you can, and grab Edgeworth's arm to tug at the sleeve and use it as a cleaning cloth. It's raining hard enough that you can barely hear yourself think as you inspect your find. A lovely bit of carving. A netsuke, you think. It should have been hanging off of Edgeworth's obi, but it wasn't. No matter, you found it anyway. It's a trick netsuke. You remember begging your older sister to get you one at a festival once, and it seems like this one works much the same way._

_It's a kirin, that much is evident, with its dragon face and ox hooves and deer's horns. And its head is bowed as if drinking from a pond. You see one of the little strings clinging to its carved beard - there, that's where you need to pull to make it show its trick. So you do. It swings open on wooden hinges, splitting from hooves to back. Part of the carving hidden inside is gruesome. The hinge is hidden on the ridge of its spine, and ribs splay outwards from that. It looks uncomfortably like a deer being split open to roast. But a little golden ornament hangs in the very center. It dances in the air as if happy to finally be revealed instead of trapped at the heart of the beast._

_Thunder's louder this time. You actually see the flash of lightning now, and you hold up the kirin carving to better see the details of the golden bauble it concealed. Now you see! A smug sort of knowledge settles in your stomach. You can be unsure of what you've seen when you wake up: right now you are very confident that this is important. You know something that you had not known before._

_There are two figures intertwined, carved in gold. Two birds fighting. One is a cruel-looking eagle with two heads and an arrow of lightning clutched in its claws. The other - well, you cannot tell quite what sort of bird it is, because it seems to be many all at once - the head of a pheasant, the tail of a peacock - and there are flames licking in its grip. Both are trying to claw at each other, to try and tear the other out of the sky. This is a battle that cannot end peacefully. There's going to be blood and feathers on the floor before it is all over._

_You cannot tell which bird is winning._

_The thunder's loud enough to make you jump. It's right outside the window, it keeps getting closer - you look to your left, Edgeworth's lips part as if about to say something even as he is scattered across the floor - why is there blood, why is there blood instead of plaster? The thunder is coming, the thunder is_ HERE -

_Then there is Pearl's face looking at you worriedly._

_For a brief moment you want to cry. You want to stop being the Master of Fey Manor and run out into the garden, and you want your older sister to be there so she can hug you and ask you what is wrong and then tell you that everything is fine, because it was just a silly dream, Maya, just a dream. But that is not going to happen, and you know that. So you sit up in your bed, stretch, and smile._

_And ask Pearls to go get things packed for a visit to see Nick, because you've got to go look up the train schedule._


	6. Don't Explain

The first decisive evidence that he wasn't really awake came to Nick when he stood just outside the cab in the cold, staring blankly into his wallet. Seven dollars and eighty three cents. That was the fare. Not bad, in all honesty. About the same fare from the office to to the courthouse on days when he was relatively flush with money and feeling lazy. So a pretty comfortable number. But he couldn't remember how to calculate the tip. Was it twenty? That sounded right. But he'd already ruled out twenty as a number too confusing for his addled brain. Half of it was ten, so if he took ten percent and doubled it... seven dollars and eighty three cents...

The cab driver coughed politely and Nick wondered exactly how long he had been staring into his wallet.

"Just, uh..." He pulled out a twenty and handed it to the surprised driver. "Keep the change, okay? Happy holidays."

"Thanks! Happy holidays to you too!" The cabby gave him a genuine, bright smile, and then he was left on his own outside his apartment.

By that point he was willing to admit that he was tired. Not just regular exhaustion, but the odd sort of tiredness that percolated through his bone marrow down into something much deeper. He'd spent a lot of time crying or trying not to cry or doing his damnedest to comfort others, and the tension of worrying over Edgeworth's life had been what had kept him going, like a clockwork toy wound to its peak. But now the springs were unfurling and he could feel himself petering slowly to a stop. As he dragged himself upstairs, his thoughts stopped being entirely coherent, just a dull mental chant of things that he had to do. _Shower, shower, shower._ He was tired enough to not even bother sorting out which bottle was body wash Maya had left behind and which was shampoo, just grabbing his usual bar of soap and scrubbing at his scalp and declaring that good enough for now. His mantra switched to _bed, bed, bed_ as soon as he stepped out into the shower.

And honestly that was the last thing he remembered before the doorbell rang a few hours later. And then quite pressingly and immediately, he was _cold_. At least he'd remembered to put boxers on before he passed out on his bed, but he had neglected covers, or a shirt, or even turning the fan off and the heat on, and it was bitterly cold. For a split second Nick considered that perhaps this was some sort of nightmare before the doorbell rang again. "I'm coming!" He half slurred, scrambling and crawling his way up. There were slacks hung up in his closet, and proper dress shirts, and... screw it. There was also his favourite fluffy blanket on the bed, so he scooped it up and tossed it around himself in a look that was halfway between roman emperor and frat boy, nearly fell down the stairs, but managed to get to the door before the fourth ring came. Surely it was going to be somebody selling something. He drew in a breath as he flung open the door, ready to deliver a long speech to whoever was there pushing magazines or cookies or whatever it was this week, and -

Maya and Pearl stared back at him, wide-eyed.

That deep furious breath exited him through half-pursed lips. Maya calmly and obviously did not look at his face, but instead at his chest. His half-bare chest. And started to blush a little.

"Uh..." Nick cleared his throat. "Um, w-wow, I wasn't, uh, wasn't expecting you two -"

"That's why we came!" Pearl chirped, apparently oblivious (or simply immune) to the oddity of the situation. "It's a surprise! ...Did we wake you up? I thought you were already up, and it's past noon..."

"Well, um, when I talked to you earlier it wasn't really that I was up already, but that I hadn't gone to sleep yet," he admitted sheepishly. And _wow_ was it ever cold outside. Maya's face seemed to be well on its way to a nice ruddy plum. "Uh, anyway, don't stand out in the cold! Come on in, I'll be just a sec, lemme go get, uh, a shirt, or something..."

By the time he came back down - in slacks and button-down white shirt - Maya had already started to make a pot of tea out of habit, and the slightly acidic bite of green tea perfumed the steam coming from his small kitchen. Nick desperately hoped that she wouldn't look too quickly at what was actually in his kitchen. Lawyer or no, he was still a bachelor, and there was still that rice cooker he had forgotten about for three weeks and now was too afraid to open for fear of disturbing whatever new sentient life had grown inside there in the meantime...

"Here!" Pearl was at his elbow, offering him a cup of tea; Maya drifted in from the kitchen, holding her own cup close in her hands, enjoying the warmth seeping through the ceramic. He did the same before he realized it. Maya's expression shifted to quiet concern. Far too grown-up an expression for her, he thought. Didn't suit her.

"So what did you call about, Nick?" A subtle frown as he noticed the general disarray he was still in. "What's going on."

"It's just, ah..." He brought one hand away from his teacup to rub at the back of his neck. "Mr. Edgeworth's in the hospital, that's all. He's going to be fine, I just didn't know that when I called you. Everything was in a bit of a panic."

Maya's eyes widened. "What?! Did he get in a car crash? Or - or maybe shot by somebody that he prosecuted?"

"No, nothing like that. I'll... I'll tell you later, Maya."

Pearl frowned deeply. He had been crossing his fingers behind his back, praying quietly for her to not notice. But she did. And although Pearl getting angry was a rarity, it was still a terrible thing; her face scrunched on the cusp of tearful fury. "Mr. Nick, what happened? You aren't telling Maya because I'm here, aren't you?" She drew in a sharp breath. "I'm not - I'm not a baby! You don't have to hide things from me anymore!"

A terrible odd guilt hung on him as he compared all the things Pearl had already been through. It made him feel odd, as though he owed her something and before he knew it the truth slipped out of him like a toad wiggling out between fingertips to leap out of a child's hands.

"Miles tried to kill himself."

Damn. Why had he said 'Miles', and not 'Edgeworth'? That was going to make him grit his teeth for hours, but that could come later. Right now there was just Pearl, her anger melting away into desperate confusion.

"But why?"

"I don't know." Nick focused on keeping his voice steady, and thankfully, succeeded.

"But why would someone want to be dead? I don't understand..." Pearl continued on, frowning in confusion, acting as if she hadn't really heard Nick's answer. He leaned over to give her a tight hug after putting his tea down, and thankfully, this seemed to bring her back to reality as she hugged him back; Maya leaned over on top of all of them, squeezing their shoulders. The cups of tea sat scattered around on furniture, cooling quickly and now wholly forgotten. 

Nick's voice was quiet and somewhat muffled in the middle of it all. "I haven't had lunch yet, but there's this new burger place..."

\--

Two hours later, in the quiet of the hospital elevator, Nick felt like he finally had enough space in his head to pay attention to the thought running around there, as persistent and irritating as a bad itch. Why had he said Miles? To Pearl and Maya, of all people. Not Edgeworth, but _Miles_...

The doors opened, and in the distance there was the soft sound of laughter. When he placed the voice he stood a little straighter in shock. He'd heard Franziska von Karma laugh before, of course, but that had been mocking mirth in the courtroom. This was more genuine and had an odd girlish grace to it. Maya looked as if she was about to say something, but Nick put his finger to his lips with a conspiratorial sort of air as they walked slowly down the hall towards the waiting room.

"...So? How's my german?" Shi-Long Lang's voice, tinny and small, coming through cell phone speakers. He barely knew of the Interpol agent - an impressive-looking person Gumshoe spoke of in reverent tones. Apparently Gumshoe had even taped one of the agent's speeches and, rather against Nick's will, lent it out to Nick so that he could listen. That was the only reason he knew the man's quite distinctive voice.

"As awful as me trying to read out your address."

"That bad, huh? Ah, well, I'll have to just practice more, _knuddelpuddel_." That made Franziska give a shrieky laugh loud enough for them to clearly hear as she doubled over in amusement. "What? Not that one? I've got a whole list I found. What about _schnuckiputzi_..." By the time they snuck into the room Franziska was doubled over in laughter - the quiet, desperate sort of wheezing laughter of someone who has absolutely lost it over something they know isn't actually that funny, but they can't stop laughing. "Okay, okay, not that. _Bienchen?_ "

Nick couldn't help speaking up at that point, as they had shuffled into the room and he was standing nearly beside Franziska. "I think you broke her, Agent Lang."

At this Franziska whipped her head back, standing up straight, face a mottled red. She scrambled for her cell phone, flipping it in mid-air and nearly dropping it at least three times before standing up and bringing it to her ear and attempting to look as dignified as she could. Pearl started to giggle, and Nick couldn't help grinning, even as Franziska stomped away to the other end of the room to conclude her conversation in hushed whispers. As she walked back over, she looked distinctly like a cat that had just fallen into a swimming pool and then pulled itself out - quietly daring anyone to mention that she might not have done exactly what she had planned.

"We brought you lunch," Nick said, quickly holding up the plain brown paper bag as a peace offering. "I didn't know what sort of something you wanted, so there's about three different burgers in here..." The blush was still sticking to Franziska's face, and she was quite obviously slightly thrown by the gesture.

"Ah... thank you, Wright." For a second her eyes flicked towards the door which led back to the staff-only hallway of the ward. "There's been no news, by the way. Which is... good." She sat down, gingerly unpacking part of the bag, meticulously unfolding one of the hamburgers. After a moment of staring it down as if it was an adversary, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a wrapped plastic fork, pushing the top bun off. By then Maya had milled around to near Franziska, and the younger woman cocked her head to one side and stared.

"That's the weirdest way to eat a hamburger I think I've seen."

"I'm not eating a hamburger," Franziska replied crisply. She then shifted the disassembled components around, and pointed with her fork in demonstration. "I am having a salad with toast -" the toppings, and the bun - "and cubed steak _avec frites_."

Maya blinked rapidly as Franziska took her first bite of her salad. "Did you just...? Wow. ...Are you some sort of burger _alchemist_ now?"

"I have been awake for at least thirty-six hours. Anything is possible."

Pearl's eyes narrowed as she hovered behind Maya. (After all, Pearl's enduring memory of von Karma was the striking young woman in the courtroom, arguing the guilt of her family. This tired and haggard-looking woman who had been laughing at her boyfriend's attempts at german pet names seemed an entirely different creature.) Maya's lips pursed in minor confusion. "...Did you just make a joke?"

"Like I said. Anything is possible." 

Nick shook his head. "Look, you've got to sleep sometime."

"I know. I've already looked into hotels in this area. Your concern is... touching, Mr. Wright, but not needed." It was an obvious attempt to try and be more crisp and formal, but it all went a little awry. There is only so professional an exhausted woman eating french fries with a plastic fork can be. (And the plastic fork was making Nick's mind wander. What sort of woman just happened to have that in her purse? Did she really carry a supply just for occasions like this? If she was _that_ well prepared, what _else_ was lurking in there? Is this what women with purses _did_?)

Fortunately his cell phone rang before he started speculating on purses as gateways to pocket dimensions. Larry. "I'll be right back, I've got to take this..." And knowing Larry's propensity for tears, it was likely to end up with both of them blubbering at some point, so he stepped out of the waiting room. To be honest, the pleasant emptiness of the hospital hallways was a welcome relief. He even waved at a slightly confused-looking Kay Faraday heading the other way. Looked like she was bringing lunch for everyone, too. Sandwiches. He guessed that Maya would be happy to help with the leftovers.

Kay Faraday and Maya meeting one another. Now there was something he regretted missing...

\--

The phonecall itself had been relatively short, as phonecalls with a hysterical Larry went. Yes, Larry, he understood. No, Larry, he didn't hold it against him at all. It was perfectly fine. And Nick knew that Larry didn't fake this sort of desperation. But his mother in Colorado had slipped, fracturing her hip on the ice of their steps while going to get the mail. They were old enough now that this was a major event. Well, at least, it was for Larry.

By the time the call ended he had managed to walk his way up to the rooftop garden of the hospital. There were signs everywhere, the hospital busily praising itself, and a pleasant little greenhouse. Several more signs gushed about how the hospital used these fresh herbs year-round in its gourmet-quality food (ha!), but it was a pleasant enough place to be, sunlight streaming in and the heat trapped there as a nice respite from cold outside.

He plucked a piece of mint and crushed it between his fingers, bringing it close to his face, letting the sharp smell overwhelm him.

Strange, now, how Larry was the only one of the three not an orphan. Nick avoided thinking of his own parents too often. Last year of art school. A semi ran a red light at an intersection. Dad went first (instantaneous, they said); Mom, three days after, after never waking up. Maybe that's why this hospital was making him bone-deep nervous. Maybe that was one of the things that had predicated his turn to law school. Maybe that was why he'd never gotten his driving license.

Nick figured he could stand there and self-analyze all day if he cared to. Instead he stuck the sprig of mint in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully on it.

_Why._

The question hadn't occurred to him. Not until Pearl had said it. It was a damn good question, so good that he couldn't ignore it. Surely Edgeworth - self-assured, calm, collected, rational Edgeworth - had to have a reason.

Maybe Nick was no psychologist or doctor, but _why_ was a question that he knew. It was something that he knew to do with. A question needed an answer, and answers came from evidence, and evidence came from investigation. That was familiar territory. Edgeworth's front door was probably still unlocked. Franziska might know where he kept a spare key. That would lead him a little closer to whatever came next.

He plucked another sprig of mint, chewing on it as he half-jogged through the maze of hospital corridors. And when he stopped at the last water fountain until the waiting room, the water was painfully cold and refreshing, making his thoughts snap to attention.

He took it as a good sign that the room was peaceful. Kay had evidently just launched into explaining an exploit of the Great and Noble Yatagaratsu to a wide-eyed Pearl and amused Maya, and even Franziska seemed entertained as Kay chattered. Kay and Maya had hit it off just as much as Nick could have hoped for. Everything, for the moment, seemed peaceful. And so he didn't interrupt. He'd send a text message to Maya when he was in the taxi.

With single-minded purpose, he jogged down through the hospital to see what he could find in Edgeworth's apartment.


	7. Some Other Spring

Nick supposed that it was good the door was still open. Not good that in his hazy panic he had forgotten to lock it, but certainly easier on him. No hunting for spares or begging the stony-faced building manager. Even if this all felt like some terrible recital, or maybe a rerun, of what had happened the last time he'd easily turned the handle and faced Edgeworth's apartment.

To his relief, nothing was moved. A top prosecutor's apartment would have been a tempting treat for any burglar, as much for the coup as for the cash. The bottle of red wine still stood vigil over Edgeworth's will and letters he had left behind. Nick closed the door behind him, gulping down the nervousness in the pit of his stomach. No, he wasn't going to find Edgeworth near death upstairs again. (Edgeworth was safe. He was recovering. Nick had to remind himself forcibly of this several times. He wasn't quite sure why.) No, he wasn't going to have to re-live that night. It was just a house. Not even a house - an apartment, really.

It did seem terribly empty, silent and still as it was. Nick made a mental note to suggest Edgeworth get a pet. A dog or something. Even a goldfish. A boggle-eyed goldfish staring blankly in greeting would go a long way to making this place more homey.

_Tss. Klik._

As soon as he heard the noise coming from upstairs, he froze in his tracks. That... that was new. And different. And unexpected.

_Tss. Klik._

And there it was again. It hadn't been a momentary trick of his mind. Maybe a top prosecutor's apartment was even more tempting than he initially thought. Nick looked around for a moment before finally deciding that a cane from the umbrella rack was his best option as far as weaponry went. Holding it up behind his shoulder like a baseball bat, ready to swing, he held his breath as he snuck up the spiral staircase, tensed, gritting his teeth, hearing another hiss-and-click, reaching the top - there was that noise _again_ -

\--

"Is there something I can do for you, Miss Fey?"

"Oh... oh, no. I just wanted to sit. I'm sorry."

"No need to apologise. I just assumed you would rather be with your friends."

(A gesture towards Kay and Maya, cellphone in hand. The younger politely did not correct the younger that Kay was merely an acquaintance.)

"They're debating about whether the Jammin' Ninja or the Steel Samurai is better. I think both of them are excited to have somebody to talk with."

"And you have no opinion on the matter?"

"Oh... I don't, not really, I guess. I like both, really."

(A long moment of silence.)

"You're a lot different here than you are in the courtroom, Miss, um, v-von..."

"Franziska. Miss Franziska will do." (And she looked into her phone as if it would tell her if that was a compliment or not.) "And yes. I am. But these are exceptional circumstances." (The kind of exceptional circumstances where she didn't mind being Franziska.) "They are about as likely to be replicated as a unicorn is to come waltzing through those doors."

"Oh, I see." (Silence, again, for not as long.) "What's a... yoo-ne-corn?"

"A thing some people believe in, and some don't. Supposedly a white horse with one horn on its forehead who uses its magic to defend and rescue the innocent."

"Do you believe in yoo-ne-corns?"

"No. Just foolish fools and antelopes. ...I used to, though."

"What happened?"

"I was never rescued."

\--

_Tss. Klik._

He had stopped the swing inches before it was set to hit the record player. The record spun around lazily once more, catching the needle just at the edge after a few long moments of twirling. A burst of hissy static came through the speakers, and then the needle snapped back into place with a click. No robbers. (No Edgeworth laying on his bed as if waiting for the grave, either.) Just a record player and a record that was well on its way to being worn out by now.

Nick turned the thing off and wobblingly went to sit on the edge of the bed. Part of him wanted to burst out laughing, and the other part of him wanted to scream. He wasn't sure what had gotten him wound so tightly. Well. Actually. He knew exactly _what_. He had just been under the assumption he'd been coping a little better than this. But he could figure that out sometime later.

He had a mission, and that, at least, made his head a little more clear. So he got up, rubbed at his face, and sighed.

Now, where the hell to start?

The easy solution would have been to go downstairs and tear open the envelope with his name on it, and everyone else's besides. Edgeworth seemed the type to lay out his final logic in his suicide note, after all. But the thought of it made it seem dirty. As if he was somehow condoning what had gone on, or was complicit in it. Or as if he expected Edgeworth to still die and wanted to waste no time opening the will and starting to claw at the other man's assets. No, it made him feel sick to his stomach, and with the wax seals on every letter, there was no way to sneak a peek. He'd do things his own way, and sleep soundly at night because of it.

Edgeworth's bedroom was relatively sparse, and in a way, that made things easy. The main feature, other than the bed, was a large bookcase. Bookcases were in nearly every room, of course, but this one contained absolutely no law books. Instead it contained several matched sets of other types. A shelf full of Dickens... oddly predictable, in its own way, but only _A Tale of Two Cities_ had its spine bent to show anyone had read it. Below it was a long row of squat little red books, looking very official in their canvas coverings and gold lettering on the side. Out of curiosity he picked one at random and cracked it open - and was completely unashamed to ignore the writing to breathe deep of the vanilla-musk of pleasantly aged paper. As for what was actually printed on it, well... It took Nick a long moment to realize the left side wasn't in English at all, but in Latin, translation on the reverse. Author and title marched along the top. _Plautus. The Casket Comedy._ That was all he needed to snap the book shut, mentally declaring he didn't much care for its sense of humor.

If he was going to go through this book-by-book, it would take him days. Best to be smart about this. If Edgeworth had underlined a passage, left a note to himself, it would be in a tome he'd read over and over... Something that looked a little frayed, a little worn, but in a wholly loved way.

He reached out to pluck the roughest-looking book from the next-to-top bookshelf. _Return of the King. J.R.R. Tolkien._ Nick squinted at the title. Mia had teased him once about not seeing the movies, despite his offhand comment that he wasn't really the swords-and-orcs fantasy type. He still hadn't gotten around to it. But, this was Edgeworth's copy, and there was the corner of a piece of paper sticking out. A clue, perhaps. In his eagerness, he flipped it open a little too roughly, and the scrap of paper fluttered out; he barely caught it, leaving it half-crumpled in his fingertips.

...A certificate? ...Oh. A certificate of authenticity. Guaranteeing that book to be a genuine first edition, signed by Tolkien himself.

It also named an estimated value. One that made Nick pale and then very, very gingerly put the book back on the shelf.

And so he sighed and dusted off his hands, facing down the bookshelf and rolling his shoulders, listening to his back pop. No answers in among the books. Maybe he'd been hoping for too much there. As convenient as it would have been to find Edgeworth's motives on the shelf, cataloged by some obscure dewey decimal number, his library fantasies weren't panning out.

Fortunately, he did spy an office through the next upstairs door.

\--

"That's unfair of me to say, though. I had Miles. Much the way you have Miss Maya, I expect."

"Oo-ooh. So that's why you're so worried about Mr. Ed-ji-worth."

"Mm. ...I don't give him enough credit for saving me, I think."

"Saving you from what?"

"My father, of course. Something you should understand, I'd think. Both of us had parents who did awful things and then left us to be saddled with their legacy. Miles is at least teaching me how to hate my father for what he's done instead of blindly accepting."

"...I don't... I don't hate my mother. ...And I don't want to."

"Things are much easier if you learn how. Just another skill, and any skill can be learned."

(The girl said nothing, looking at her feet. And the tired woman looked into her cell phone as if it had the answer.)

"I suppose that's it, then."

"That's what?"

(A sigh.) "My luggage. It's well and truly lost. I'll have to buy an entirely new set of clothes or two tomorrow."

"....Lug-gage does that?"

"Sometimes. When you catch a last-minute flight, especially." (She put her hand over her face. And the girl leaned forward, as if trying to catch a glimpse of what was underneath.)

"Miss Franziska?" (She had trouble fitting the word in her mouth. But she managed.) "If you want to cry, I think everyone will understand."

"I won't, however."

(She is so very tired. Exhausted to the point where taking a child's advice seems a good idea. Something must be done.)

\--

He'd expected the laptop, neatly sitting on the desk plugged in as if completely missing the point that it was a laptop at all. He'd even expected the flute tucked in its case, leaning up next to a music stand. Nick would be lying if he said he expected the music stand to have been covered with pieces of paper with the notes drawn in by hand, evidence of some having been erased and drawn in elsewhere. An original composition. The pieces of paper were just muddled messes to him, and he wondered what exactly it sounded like, but he didn't have a musician's mind and they remained mere dots on a page.

The computer he had honestly expected to have been reset completely, so he was slightly surprised to be greeted with a screen inviting him to log in and 'resume his session'. That meant trying to guess the password. Which meant at least thirty minutes and counting of frustration.

Of course he'd been sly and vain and tried his own name first. (Okay. Having Edgeworth's computer open to the mere mention of Phoenix Wright was a bit saccharine even for _his_ well-hidden romantic desires.) Then any name that sounded familiar from Edgeworth's cases. He'd even gone into the room and gotten the second, decidedly not signed first edition of The Return of the King, and flipped through it to type in whatever names he could spot. Including the family trees at the back.

Eventually he ended up banging his head against the keyboard and making a sheer noise of frustration before accidentally bopping the enter key with his ear and being told yet again that the password he had typed was incorrect.

Fortunately his cell phone rang, sparing the innocent laptop from Nick's rage. Of course, that was it, he'd forgotten to tell Maya...

"Nick! We're going with Kay and Miss von Karma, so when you get back... uh, where are you, anyway?" Her voice tilted upwards in pitch as if she was just now noticing he'd been gone.

"Oh, I, uh, I had a hunch I wanted to check out. ...I'm at Edgeworth's apartment. Where are you going with them?"

"Kay has a copy of _Steel Samurai and Jammin' Ninja Super Team-Up: Battle at Wuzong Forest!_ She says it's great, and that by the end of it she totally loved the Steel Samurai, so if I watch it I'll probably come out with a better appreciation of the Jammin' Ninja, and there's apparently an entire series - did you know that? - A series, just of team-ups! But they're only shown in France, or something, but she has them downloaded, and anyway, the hostel she's staying at has a television -"

From the other end of the line there was a clear sound of objection from Franziska von Karma. Evidently Maya brought the phone away from her ear, because Nick could near-perfectly hear the conversation. "...Kay Faraday, a _hostel_? Edgeworth would never forgive me if I let you stay there. I'll get you a room at the hotel I'm staying at."

"But isn't that expensi-"

"Yes, but I will gladly pay for your room. To be quite honest, I have come into the possession of an inheritance I would be happy to be rid of, the sooner, the better."

"...Does this mean I can, like, order room service?"

"Yes."

Minor girlish shrieking ensued.

"...Yeah!! Nick? Nick, are you still there?"

He laughed tirely into his phone. "Yeah, I got it. So where should I head after I'm done here?"

"Umm... I think it's called the Royal Whitcombe. It's about a block away from the Gatewater? You know, the one with all the lights?"

"The one that looks painfully expensive to stay in, instead of just plain expensive? Yeah, I know the one. I'll head over there and meet with you when I'm done here, then."

"Great! Then I'll see you in -"

"Wait a minute. Kay's Edgeworth's assistant, right? ...Can you ask her what Edgeworth's password is?"

"Sure. ...She says it's latin. 'De legibus.' One of the things Cicero wrote, or something."

"What?"

"D-E, L-E-G-I... well, it's spelled pretty much what it sounds like. Listen, I gotta go now, okay? I'll see you later!" Maya chirped happily, barely giving Nick time to say goodbye before she hung up.

Nick sighed at the phone and put it back in his coat pocket. Figured that Miles Edgeworth would do something casually insufferable like have his computer password be in _latin_. It probably wouldn't even work, he supposed, grimly bracing himself for yet another failure as he hunted out each letter on the keyboard and entered the phrase. B, u, s... and enter, and...

To his mild surprise, the computer gave a cheerful chord and its screen switched to what, presumably, Edgeworth had been working on moments before.

A webpage about the muscle relaxer he had used. Completely unsurprising. And that, after some futile clicking, seemed to be that. There were files on the computer, of course, hundreds of them, most relating to cases of one type or another. Even using the tricks that Maya had taught him came up with nothing. The man's browsing history was damnably clean - simply looking up journals on law reviews and the decisions of court cases with the occasional stop at an equally bland diversion such as the BBC's news pages.

It was enough to make Nick want to scream. He settled for kicking hard against the desk in his aggravation, letting the wheeled office chair slide into the middle of the room. There had to be something there. Something interesting that would at least point him in the right direction, no easy smoking gun, but a hint of where...

...had that little black book been on the floor a moment ago?

No, it most certainly hadn't. Apparently jarred free from where it had slipped in the desk, it now sat on the floor, and Nick scrambled to pick it up. The year on the front of the leather cover, the hefty quantity of pages - a day planner of some sort. A smile broke out on his face, and he eagerly snapped it up.

He'd finally found what he was looking for.

\--

They were in the middle of piling into the taxi (the driver graciously allowing Franziska to sit up front, where she continued to look oddly shellshocked), Pearl in the middle, Kay to one side and Maya in last, when Maya's phone rang and she squeaked. The curb was icy enough that she half slipped into the cab as she fumbled in her jacket. Kay started laughing, and then Pearl, and she couldn't help but join in, too. It was... well, she didn't want to say that she was enjoying it, exactly, given the circumstances that they all came together for. But if there was a silver lining to this cloud, it was probably meeting Kay. Maya got the sense that Kay was just as eager for company her own age as Maya herself was.

Besides, she talked up one good theory about the Steel Samurai, and who was Maya to say no to _that_?

She closed the door, still giggling as she finally managed to get her phone out. "...Hello? Oh, hi, Nick!"

"Hey, Maya. Listen, I need a favor. From Kay, actually, but I'll tell you first. You know that all the visits to prisoners in the detention center are taped, right? I need the video from the twenty-second of this month..."


	8. Willow Weep for Me

"Go to sleep, you stupid bitch."

The whispered words hung in the artificial darkness. Dim light was still peeking in around the corners of the curtains, and a narrow band of light came in from the hall. Franziska was perfectly aware that it was dark enough to sleep. It just seemed her mind didn't yet agree.

The hotel's laundry service had been happy to help her. The concierge had been more than eager to assist, asking her preferred designers (Dior, Elie Tahari) and dress size (4 to 6, err on the side of too large - easier to tailor down, of course, rather than up) and preferences (charcoal grey skirt suit and two silk button-down shirts in white, she would shop for the rest herself tomorrow, thank you). She had even, through some miraculous grace, remembered to pack some emergency clothing in her handbag. Just a spare pair of underwear and an over-large t-shirt. Shi-Long had gotten it for her, as a joke, some touristy obnoxious five three sizes too big that barely kept itself on her, slipping to one side or the other to bare one shoulder, then the next, then both at once. Comfortable, though. Well-washed cotton. Shi-Long had worn it for a few days. She had worn it for more. It still smelled slightly of him, if she concentrated. Mostly smelled of the bottom of her purse and detergent, though.

It also wasn't helping her sleep in the least.

So she rolled over on the bed, tempted to scream. Her own thoughts were busy screaming at her, after all. _Go to sleep, you stupid bitch. Go to sleep. You can't even do the most simple and natural thing, you useless sow._ It was a very familiar tune, all told, and one she was used to working around, like hearing the melody of a song on the radio through the static. She could hum along and sing the chorus just like she needed to.

The idea that her father had a part in planting that voice there, however, was something she didn't quite know what to do with.

More and more such troublesome ideas were cropping up like that, to be perfectly honest. Just when she thought she had swallowed the bitter pill of Papa, her Papa, the one who she had danced with by standing on his shoes, the one who always said that her hair was so much like her mother's when he adjusted her hairbow, the one whose rare damning praise she lived for - the idea that Papa had killed in cold blood and was sorry only to get caught... Well, so many other things now. This debacle about accidentally falling in love with Lang when they had promised to be only benefits with meager friendship. All the legal minutiae that came with inheriting an estate. And so on. But it had all started with Papa.

Truthfully she thought her heart should be settled. After all, Papa was buried beside Mama now in the same ancient, cold cemetery. It'd all been very efficient. Three hours after the execution he - no, she corrected herself, his corpse - had been on a plane to Germany. The funeral, small and quiet as it was (well, perhaps beyond small, since it was merely Miles and herself and a priest who seemed rather out of his element) had been held five hours after the plane touched down. Miles had asked if she wanted company, and she had said no. Politely, she thought.

Maybe she was the reason for all of this. Maybe her saying no was the permission he needed. Maybe if she'd said yes -

That was a very dangerous thought and for a moment she sought to smother it in the pillow before finally sitting up with a gasp. It nearly turned into a prelude to crying but she combed her hair back out of her face with her hand, pawing for her phone. Fine. If she couldn't sleep, she couldn't sleep. There was no use in trying more.

The hotel had wi-fi, and it hadn't occurred to her to check on anything until now. At this point she would take even an unfunny cat video forwarded to her by Gumshoe. She would be overjoyed to find an email from Lang teasing her about how bad she was at learning his language and trying to saddle her with fifteen different increasingly silly pet names. Maybe she'd even read the spam for the fun of it. Better than trying to sleep and leaving that voice and its wonderings her whole head to echo in.

Her email took awhile to load. She couldn't really blame it. When had she last checked it, anyway? Before opening the bottle of wine that Phoenix Wright had interrupted with news of Miles. That seemed ages ago, now, as if the event would be recorded on the walls of some Egyptian tomb to be kept period-appropriate. So surely there had to be something interesting. Something -

Her eyes skimmed down to the bottom despite herself. _To my big sister. _Sender: Miles Edgeworth. Date: Dec. 28th, 7:44 pm.__

__Big sister. That was the first time he'd called her that. It had always been _her_ joke, calling him little brother on account of being a von Karma for less time than she had been. Always a joke he had chafed under and glared at her at (occasionally with a twitching smile). 'Big sister.' That did not sit right. Not at all. And it was in German, even. He'd gone out of his way to write in her mother tongue instead of his own._ _

__Instead of giving her mind time to properly panic and her stomach time to become nauseated with useless worry, she tapped the email to open it._ _

_____Franziska,  
I know you will likely be angry with me when you hear the news. And, if not angry, then likely anguished. Please, instead, be happy for me as I am for you. I know that you have always felt as if you were perpetually stuck in my shadow. The truth of the matter is that you are, and always have been, more clever than I am, and circumstance has simply prevented you from getting the recognition you deserve. But circumstances are about to change. I am sure you will be absolutely brilliant in whatever you tackle next. Don't waste your time on tears; just go and accomplish all that I know you can. And if you can spare a moment, think of me fondly from time to time. Thank you for letting me be your brother.  
All my love,  
Miles_

__She got to the second sentence before her eyes started to become teary. The rest of the letter was read through the distorted prisms of teardrops sticking to her eyelashes. And, at the signature, she couldn't help a sound escaping her. Half a scream, perhaps. A wail or a cry. In either case it was accompanied by her throwing her phone at top-speed towards the opposite wall, where it promptly shattered, battery and front frame splitting away from the rest with a small flurry of plastic shards. It would be another thing to replace, of course, but she would confront that problem in the morning._ _

__At that moment, however, she simply turned her face into the pillow and cried._ _

__\--_ _

__Phoenix Wright double-checked the door number before worriedly clearing his throat and knocking at the door. He was only halfway through the second tap of his knuckles on wood when the door swung open, and Pearl beamed up at him. "Hi, Mr. Nick! We're having a picnic! ...Kinda!"_ _

__He ambled into the impressively large hotel room and, for lack of a better word, proceeded to gawk. "...Wow. You guys definitely are."_ _

__Apparently, Kay Faraday had taken the clearance of room service and absolutely run with it. There were the empty plates of what presumably were two burgers, and one three-quarters eaten next to it, copious platters of chicken fingers, and dinner plates full of what looked to be the most sublime french fries known to mankind, all topped off by a pitcher of what looked to be fresh from-scratch lemonade and three milkshakes served in tall parfait glasses - each milkshake layered chocolate, vanilla, and then strawberry, for the indecisive customer. Every plate had some sort of garnish, even the french fries (which had a dotted pattern of spicy mayonnaise and ketchup on the rim of the plate), and honestly looked as if they would be presentable in some fine dining establishment._ _

__And the smell. Gods above, the smell was enough to make his mouth drop open despite the drool, and he had to give an ungainly slurp that turned into a gulp which he hoped neither Kay nor Maya noticed. They both seemed pretty distracted by the tv._ _

__"See! There! That's what I was talking about!" Kay excitedly pointed at the screen. "The team-ups are so cool because of things like that!"_ _

__"How would you even play a tune on a samurai spear, though?" Maya asked around a french fry._ _

__"I dunno. Very carefully, I guess. But it's just what they need to defeat the dragon!"_ _

__Fortunately, it cut away for a moment to commercial and they both turned to wave to him. "Hi, Nick! ...We got a little distracted."_ _

__"Mmf," Kay noted apologetically, mouth full of chicken._ _

__"Yeah, I, uh... saw. ...Wow." He had no idea when he had become so hungry, but there it was, as sure as a punch to the gut. "You ordered... all of this, huh? Do you think Miss von Karma would shred me to pieces if I ordered something, or..."_ _

__Pearl cheerfully pulled up the telephone, grabbing the complimentary hotel stationary along with the pen from the desk. "You can tell me what you want, Mr. Nick, and I'll order it!"_ _

__"She's our expert," Kay explained, half-grinning. "Apparently there's no menu. You just ring them up with requests and they say if they can or can't do it. And most of the time, they can."_ _

__"Wow. Well, then, uh... a grilled chicken sandwich, maybe? And -"_ _

__"Come on, Nick! Dream big!" Maya teased._ _

__"Oh, fine. A, um... Franziska is going to whip me into a coma for this," he sighed. "Surf and turf. Ask them if they'll send up some of that. And a glass of sangria."_ _

__Pearl frowned deeply, eyebrows knitting in confusion. "Surf and... turf...? Mr. Nick, are you feeling okay? Are you sure you want some seawater and some grass? That doesn't sound very good."_ _

__He laughed, sitting down on one of the two beds. "When you order it in a restaurant, it means a lobster tail and a steak. You know, one from the surf, the other from turf. I haven't had it in..." He looked up as he thought, shamelessly pulling off his shoes. "Years, at least. I think after I passed the bar."_ _

__"Wow, that must have been a long time ago, then," Kay chirped, and Nick resisted the urge to glare at her._ _

__"I'm not THAT old..."_ _

__"Yeah, but you're old enough to not appreciate the Steel Samurai."_ _

__"OR the Jammin' Ninja."_ _

__"That makes you ancient."_ _

__"Yep. We all agreed."_ _

__Nick rolled his eyes, interrupted by Pearl piping up. "Umm, Mr. Nick, what's a sand-gree-ah?"_ _

__"Oh, it's a kind of... spanish thing. Like fruit punch, but for adults. And before you ask, Maya, no, you may not try a sip."_ _

__"Aawww...."_ _

__Kay excitedly shushed her again as the movie came back on, and they both leaned in excitedly. Nick had sat down on the other bed, and at that moment, it was far too tempting to simply let himself flop back. As expected, the mattress was exquisitely comfortable. Not quite as expected, though, was how one moment of closing his eyes apparently became many as he fell asleep._ _

__He was awoken, in fact, by the clatter of a room service cart being pushed into the suite. And he didn't hear it, or see it, but instead merely smelled it. Tender lobster. Garlic butter. Deep savouriness of filet mignon left perfectly bloody in the middle. He fortunately managed to sit up before his stomach climbed up out of his mouth in pursuit of food. The glass of sangria even had several orange slices in it, and to be perfectly frank, it more resembled a small punchbowl than a mere glass._ _

__Pearl watched him, wide-eyed and curious, as he sipped at the sangria and gave a pleased sort of hum. "Do you really like that, Mr. Nick? It smells really... gross."_ _

__"Part of being an adult is learning to tolerate and even enjoy gross things, Pearly."_ _

__"Like... mopping? And taxes?"_ _

__"Well, those just get tolerated." He took a deep sip of the sangria, sitting back down on the bed and dragging the service trolley around to act as a table. Both Kay and Maya abruptly cheered - something exciting must have happened in their show. Nick didn't especially care, momentarily having only eyes for filet and lobster tail._ _

__It was so good, in fact, that he completely forgot to feel guilty. Later he would, of course. It was absurd on some level to give in to the pure enjoyment of creature comforts - to be downright hedonistic - while Miles Edgeworth, mere miles away, lay in a medically-induced coma. But at the same time they were merely human, and the body had needs. This need, apparently, was a longstanding craving for the finer things in life. As long as those finer things were tasty and served with garlic butter._ _

__Maya and Kay dissolved into more hysterical cheering as he concentrated on his dinner, but he couldn't be patient enough to figure out what the Steel Samurai and Jammin' Ninja were currently doing. Instead there was the slim leather-bound book still in his possession. There could be no such thing as being too thorough._ _

__Eventually the show ended, and when he was taking the last few bites of his steak, he finally became aware of Maya and Kay staring curiously at him. Or, rather, curiously at what he had. In the blink of an eye, Kay snatched up the planner, flipping through it. "Oooh. I always wanted to get my hands on this. So, anything juicy in here? Secret rendezvous with forbidden lovers?" She held it sideways, letting the pages fall one by one._ _

__Nick gave her a glare as if to remind her that she wasn't taking this seriously enough before sighing. "Not that I can tell. I've gone through it four times now. It's just all so... very Edgeworthish. You know, trial times, tailoring appointments, prosecutor office meetings, the occasional note of a concert. Nothing."_ _

__"Except that thing you mentioned."_ _

__"Yeah. There is that." Nick frowned quietly. "You're sure you can do this, Kay?"_ _

__"Of course," she said, near-boasting. "The videos from the detention center are all stored at the police plaza. And it's easy to get into there. I go visit Gummy every so often for practice." She grinned widely at this._ _

__Nick, however, didn't seem quite so carefree. "You realize that this is at least one felony, right? If not multiple ones."_ _

__"Well, if I get caught, I've got a good defense lawyer, right? And besides. I won't get caught."_ _

__Kay smiled brightly, and that seemed to be the end of it. Maya proposed watching another movie, Pearl yawned sleepily and curled up on the bed next to Nick, he valiantly tried at her request to braid her hair, and the closest thing to calm they could manage settled in around them. Before long, Pearl's hair was in a messy and crooked braid while she snored quietly, Kay was even starting to yawn, and Maya was looking up the train schedules back to Kurain with a mixture of disinterest and nervousness._ _

__Nick still kept the planner open, though - open to December, week of the 28th. 7 pm onwards was blocked out in one single, solid X. The rest of the pages in the planner had been torn out, only leaving the occasional piece of paper stuck in the binding behind. And the pen strokes had been firm enough to leave indentations on the paper - soft valleys that Nick couldn't help letting his fingers drift over again and again._ _

__He would figure this out, Nick told himself. That was a promise._ _


	9. Crazy He Calls Me

Phoenix wasn't about to say it aloud - hell, he wasn't even going to think it too hard, lest some telepath overhear and rain down bad luck upon his head - but for a little while, things almost seemed... normal.

He'd gotten up to see Pearl and Maya off on the mid-morning train to Kurain, after they had accidentally-on-purpose missed the last evening train back. It was good to see Maya making friends with someone her own age, and she and Kay seemed to have hit it off pretty well, even if their main topics of conversation seemed to be gossiping about the Wright-Edgeworth Rivalry and whether the Steel Samurai was better than the Jammin' Ninja (and how they both agreed that the new series  _The Fighting Nuns of Clockwork Tokyo_ was probably going to be awful when it came out). He wondered when was the last time Maya had a sleepover. Or if she'd ever had one, really. Kurain didn't seem the sort of town to accommodate teenage girls wanting to stay up all night eating sugary candy and watching trashy television and gossiping about boys.

The world still spun madly on despite whatever protests he could manage. It certainly would be simpler if he could have just asked everything else to settle down for a few weeks, but there were still bills to pay, still paperwork left undone, still laundry to shuffle from machine to machine and even attempt to iron. Franziska seemed to be like-minded, as he heard in passing from Kay that she had hit the most upscale boutiques with all the fury and efficiency of an invading horde, blitzing in with credit card drawn and leaving mildly confused and exhausted (but quite happy, since they worked on commission) salespeople in her wake.

Nick even managed a mostly uninterrupted night of sleep. A blessèd miracle if he had ever encountered one. The drunk screaming match at 4 am could be entirely forgiven as it was the only interruption, and he had simply rolled over to find his earplugs and dropped back off to sleep after taking one more sip of the still-pleasantly-cold white russian he had made for himself as a nightcap. By the time nine in the morning rolled around, thanks to turning off his alarm, it seemed as decadent as sleeping until noon.

For awhile he stared at the ceiling. It took him five whole deep breaths to remember all the reasons he had to be anxious.

It took the news informing him for Nick to remember that it was New Years' Eve. Not that the day really mattered that much to him, anyway. Just a day to signal writing the wrong year on things for a few weeks. Not like he'd had anybody to kiss and celebrate with for years, even if sometimes it seemed like centuries.

He'd been scrubbing his teeth, wandering around his apartment in undershirt and boxers, listening to the five-day forecast (cold, clear, not more snow thank goodness) when a chirp came from his cell phone. Foam dripping from the side of his mouth like a rabid dog, he scrambled for his phone. Oh. Franziska had texted him. She was probably one of the few people who could make text abbreviations look professional. News from the hospital. Edgeworth would likely be waking up sometime this afternoon. They could visit, once the physicians gave the all-clear.

Nick sighed in relief before stopping himself and wondering just how relieved he should actually be.

But the day still started out pleasant, with the weather clear and the air still and enough pale winter sunlight for all the ice to seem to glitter. It was warm enough to walk, as long as he pulled his scarf tight around his neck and ears, and so he did, taking the long scenic route into the city proper instead of calling a cab. A stop for brunch at the little local bakery with the hand-made bagels. Another coffee from the hometown roasting company one block down and two blocks over. Window-shopping along the way. Part of him was compelled to take a gift... Though, to be fair, there was no Hallmark card for "Sorry you tried to kill yourself and I probably broke a few of your ribs doing CPR", and even if there was, Nick had no idea what section it would be in. ("Get well soon"? "Sympathy"? "Friendship"?) He was absolutely sure a stuffed Steel Samurai doll would earn him a glare, if not a slap. Edgeworth was not a man to tolerate any sort of kitchiness, either, so there went three-quarters of all gifts. This would be much easier if there was some traditional present, of course, but there was no boutique of gold-inlay silk-lined bespoke prozac holders, so in the end he settled for walking into a florist's.

A chime announced his arrival, along with a rush of warm air as subtle as a slap to the face. The girl at the counter shot him a bright smile as he made sure the door closed behind him - it would be a shame to waste the near-tropical air, after all. "Hi there! I'll be with you in just a second once I'm done with this orchid," she chattered amiably. The orchid in question, sitting on the counter, was indeed quite impressive, with spindly pale-green and fuchsia striped blossoms. That alone let Nick know he definitely did not want to ever ask about the plant's pricetag. A rainbow of fresh flowers was spread out around him in neat rows. Half of them he wasn't sure he could name. Instead he quietly looked, tugging down his scarf a little in the heat while browsing. It'd be a lot easier if he, say, knew Edgeworth's favourite color - well, perhaps he did, but they didn't really make flowers in  _mauve_. And if he was going to go that route, he'd have to find a tiny cravat for the vase. And he didn't think -

"Okay! Sorry about that! How can I help you?" Nick jumped, nearly slamming into the girl behind him. She giggled sheepishly and tucked her hands in her wide white apron as if to say that such things happened all the time, and smiled wide enough for Nick to see how her nose crinkled up as she did. "Looking to get a bouquet?"

"Yeah, something like that. Sorry, I just haven't done this much," he admitted, reaching back to scratch his neck.

"It's fine! We get new people in all the time," she chirped. "So, how far in the dog-house are you?"

Nick paused, blinking. "...What?"

"How much trouble are you in, I mean. Because you look sort of guilty, and I'm guessing that means there's an angry girlfriend in the picture somewhere," she chattered. "Or boyfriend! I mean, I don't judge or anything. We get all types! So, how bad was it? Like, fart in bed bad, or drunk sexting your ex bad, or mother-in-law's coming this weekend with little warning bad, or accidentally putting the ring down the garbage disposal bad?"

"Uh." Was it hot in here? It was definitely hot in this little slice of the tropics. He could feel the heat rising on his face, at least. "No, nothing, uh, nothing like that! I'm just visiting a friend in the hospital!"

"Oooh!" She leaned back a little and smacked her nose as she laughed. "Sorry! I'm super sorry. I just assume some things sometimes. I swear I'm normally right but when I get things wrong, it's really embarrassing, you know? So!" She jumped in place (enough for Nick to look down and notice she was wearing sandals, which he marveled at with a strange sort of envy). "Does your friend have any allergies, any stuff like that?"

"Well, he... Yes! Yes, he does. Pollen in the spring, that sort of thing."

"Okay, so probably not the more fragrant things like with lavender or lilacs. Does he have any favourite kind of flower?"

Nick honestly tried to figure out a word to say but it started out a confused little gurgle in the back of his throat anyway. "...Iiiiiiii don't know...?"

She giggled in a kind way. "That's fine! It's not really the sort of thing many people know about each other," she confided, leaning forward in a conspiratorial whisper. "So don't feel bad. Now. We have a couple of bouquets and arrangements, and we can deliver directly to the hospital if you know his room number, too!"

"I'd like to carry them in, I think," he admitted somewhat shyly.

"That's great too! I'll knock the cost of the vase off the price, then. See anything you like?"

Nick bit his lip for a moment in thought. "I, uh... What's the most cheerful kind of flower?"

"Oh, sunflowers! Definitely! We have this bouquet that has a variety of them! A couple of big ones, then smaller fancy varieties." It was surprisingly ornate for a bunch of sunflowers, Nick had to admit, with smaller ones in many golden-reds circling three yellow blooms as large as plates. "And hypoallergenic, really. Very few people are allergic to sunflowers. They don't really give off a fragrance, but they're pretty to look at.

Well, one of the reddish small ones was almost mauve, if you turned your head and squinted.

"Great. I'll take it."

* * *

He'd been expecting to hear many things. Franziska von Karma having another round of silly pet names inflicted on her, for instance. Or maybe Kay Faraday talking Franziska's ear off. Or even the tiny bleeps and chirps of Kay busily playing a game on her phone. Maybe even someone eating a late lunch, since two thirty in the afternoon was still a somewhat acceptable time for that.

He did not expect to hear Edgeworth's voice.

As soon as he did, he broke into a run, a few petals jarred off of the bouquet he carried in his arms to litter the floor with yellow-red. Nick didn't have the presence of mind to stop and put the sunflowers down. Not even when he pushed his way past the half-open double doors labeled  _staff only._ Especially not when he passed Kay Faraday standing still in something between fear and confusion.

Miles Edgeworth did not look well.

Nick realized later that he should have suspected as such, but he hadn't really prepared himself for just how ill Edgeworth still appeared. Pale with dark green-grey circles underneath his red-rimmed eyes. Everything out of place: his cravat only half-tied, buttons on his white shirt crookedly off by one, hair stringy and falling into his eyes. Shaking, ever-so-slightly, noticeable only if you watched his shoulders (usually proud and level, now hunched over tight in pain). And the red...

Red winding down around one arm, like a ribbon on some jolly present, going blotchy on the white cloth down from his elbow to the end of his fist and onto the floor. Dripping. Apparently nobody had told him that simply ripping out an IV wasn't the best course of action.

His tone was worlds away from the smooth and smug confidence of the courtroom. It was fully foreign even compared to when Nick managed to shake him and call forth biting dismay over having disproved the prosecution. Instead his voice was hoarse and dry, cracking like mud in summer sun, bitterly raw with anger. Something terribly powerful was behind it. Nick had never heard it before. Maybe it was the same sort of hurt that made the singers on Edgeworth's old vinyl albums sing so loudly. Maybe it was simple anger that was setting things alight like a match tossed on a puddle of gasoline.

Nick wasn't sure, but it scared him.

From the looks of it, the nurse standing between Edgeworth and the rest of them was scared too. "Sir, please calm down -"

"To  _hell_ with that! I've been imprisoned here too long already!" He jutted out a finger towards her, a foreign wildness in his eyes. "I expect to either be released, or to be presented with a writ of habeas corpus showing your right to hold me here - and I expect it  _within the hour_ \- so that I can get home and try this again; I'd been hoping to leave the chandelier intact without any damage, but it seems I'm forced to do things in a more traditional manner -"

"Sir, I need you to pay attention to me -"

"Because it seems at this point a properly broken neck is my only choice, despite this hospital's  _supposed_ commitment to dignity in end-of-life care for terminal patients -"

"You don't have a terminal disease, sir," the nurse said, looking furtively to her left as if hoping for reinforcements at any moment, and cringing back as Edgeworth raised his voice.

" _I'm_ the one who has to endure this hell, damn you! And I've had enough! I've outlived my usefulness and I want it to  _end!_ That should be my choice! It  _is_ my choice! You had your damn seventy-two hours, the psychiatric hold should be over, it's in the code, now either declare me _non compos mentis_ or release me!" His voice was breaking now in a different way, on the cusp of sobbing of mixed anger and anguish. "It's not hard to understand -  _it's not goddamn hard to understand_ \- I have -  _I have a right_ -" He sucked in a hard breath, bottom lip trembling, before turning and finally seeming to see Nick.

Nick had paused just a few steps past Kay. The bouquet of sunflowers was still in his hand. Knuckles white around the softly crinkling plastic and tissue paper. Long yellow petals sweeping the dirty tile. Frozen, stunned in fear, not knowing what to do.

Edgeworth's face twisted into the most vile expression Nick had ever seen. A blank anger was behind his eyes. Another drop of blood finally found itself shaken off of his fist and onto the floor. "You traitor -" He half-hissed the breath, letting the words get stuck in his teeth before exploding into a raw scream. " _YOU GODDAMN TRAITOR -_ "

And then several more nurses were abruptly there, air calm and professional even as they tackled Edgeworth to the floor. He writhed and shrieked, trying to twist out of their grip, spitting the most refined set of curses at them Nick had ever heard. It was hard to look at the blankness in his eyes and the way his mouth - wide open, mid-scream, showing white teeth in a snarl - and see his friend, his fellow lawyer, instead of some mere animal. They acted as if this was routine even as they dragged him away.

The nurse left behind cleared her throat, shuffled some paperwork at her corner desk, and opened up a folder to apparently jot down some notes. Nick could still hear Edgeworth screaming several corridors away. Kay gave a confused sniff, bringing her scarf up to her eyes, almost as if to hide behind it. The nurse talked with smooth confidence as she continued writing in the file. "I, ah... I'm afraid seeing him will likely be impossible now. I'm very sorry. And don't take what he said to heart." She jerked the pen across the paper, making a noise loud enough for them to hear before closing it firmly. "People say things they don't mean in that sort of state."

Nick nodded and muttered something, and Kay squeaked out an "all right", and they retreated out into the waiting room once more. Kay spun around in a circle, lost in thought and looking shaken, before finally stuttering out a sentence that mostly got stuck in her scarf. Something about needing to 'meet Gummy'. That was good, Nick guessed. But it also left him alone, slumped in a chair, staring blankly at the ceiling and listening to the ticking of a far-off clock.

...and wondering what to do with all these damn sunflowers.

* * *

Any remaining normalcy for the day had been thoroughly shattered. Couples were already sweeping in to the hotel's exquisite lobby, arm in arm, for the New Year's celebration being held in one of the upper ballrooms, and it was barely six o' clock. Nick tried to keep his head down, opting to stare at Kay's text message that had summoned him there, instead of people-watching. For some reason seeing the women in glittering evening gowns and men in tuxedos, ready to sweep in a new year with a deep kiss, made his shoulders feel very heavy and tired indeed. Part of him whispered that this was because of Edgeworth's accusation of traitor bouncing around in his head. But he could think about that later. Preferably alone, in his own apartment, and with a white russian. Or maybe he would just bring the entire bottle of coffee liquor back to bed with him. Yeah. That could work...

He jumped probably a little more than necessary when Franziska sat next to him. The grey coat-dress she had chosen managed to be imposing and impeccably tailored while being conspicuously absent of the usual signature von Karma frills inherited from her father. The blue cabochon still sat at her throat, though. She didn't look at him, instead crossing her legs and looking towards the door as she spoke.

"If it makes you feel any better, they aren't letting me see Miles, either. Procedure, apparently." Nick was not entirely sure that was an attempt at a kindness or not. Mostly she just looked exhausted, from her crying-reddened eyes down to the way she wiggled one foot in its high heel to try and get it off the blister forming on the back of her foot.

"Oh," he managed, before chancing, "thank you?"

"Mm." He wasn't sure what that little hum was supposed to translate to and it seemed she didn't quite know either.

Nick tried to focus on his cell phone again, or at least pretend to do so, and Franziska watched people filter in through the elegant hotel lobby. From the length of the gowns and the elaborate details on the tuxedos, it was obviously a black tie affair, the very best of the city putting on their most extravagant. The one time of year to wear the heirloom diamond necklace and show your wealth around your neck. And Franziska watched, expression blank, in her grey dress, looking as plain as a peahen.

In among the glitterati, a familiar face stumbled in - Kay Faraday, looking almost as tired as Franziska did. "Mr. Nick! Miss Franziska! I'm really glad you're here, actually..." She rummaged around in her bag even as it seemed to take Franziska a moment to realize she was being talked to. "Okay, so, I found the taped records from the detention center. And I found the disc for the day we're looking for, too.  _And_ the right time. Edgeworth  _did_ go to visit Manfred von Karma." She was slightly breathless, as if she had run straight from the cab into the lobby. Nonetheless she pulled out a small, grey, boxy individual DVD player from her pack, wrestling to pull out the headphones that were plugged into it as well before popping open the screen and turning it on. "There's just one problem. They're, ah, speaking all in German, and I don't..."

Franziska mutely reached out, adjusting her tailored cuff as she did. Kay gave a sigh of relief and a ghost of a smile crossed Franziska's face. It took until then for Nick to notice that she had forgotten her makeup. Perhaps on purpose. It did not seem like her to simply forget part of her armor.

The DVD spun inside the little player, and the screen flickered on. Kay reached around to skip to the right part before backing off, and Franziska cleared her throat as she put one of the earbuds in her ear. The picture wavered for a moment before displaying a view of the (all too familiar for Nick's taste) visiting room in black and white with a severe-looking timestamp in the corner. Manfred von Karma was already sitting there, hands clasped in front of him. The door opposite swung open, and Miles, already looking stressed and sleepless, stepped in with a frown on his face. "They're just saying hello, really." Franziska cleared her throat again and tried to keep up with the pace of the conversation. "...'You aren't surprised that I'm here' -" she pointed to Miles, then to her father. "Papa's saying, 'no, I'm not surprised at all, I made you what you are.' ...'I don't have to listen to this. I already know what you're going to say.'" On the video, Edgeworth abruptly stood, shoving the chair away from him. "'But you'll listen anyway. I know, because I trained you, down to every detail.'" Her eyebrows started to furrow, and on the screen Edgeworth froze with his hand on the door. "'From the way you do your hair, to the way you dress, to the way you prosecute, to your, ah - to what you eat, to who you love and -'"

The words caught in her throat and she stared as the conversation continued. Kay and Nick stared at her, waiting for the next torrent of translated words. And on the video, Miles slowly turned, shoulders slumped in almost childlike defeat, walking back to the chair. Franziska gulped, and then gulped again, looking confused and oddly wounded.

And then she ripped the headphone out of her ear as if it had suddenly become flame-hot and she was flinching away from it.

"No, I can't - I can't do this any more, I don't want to hear any more of this, I'm sorry -" Not only was she apologising for it, but her voice trembled close to tears, and she shook her head. "I can't - I'm sorry, I don't want to - I can't -" She backed away, getting up off the bench as ungracefully as possible, nearly stumbling. And she shook in a breath that had a peculiar vibrato to it, a precursor to sobbing, and quickly put her hand over her face as if shielding her expression even as she turned away from them and started walking briskly towards the door.

Kay's mouth curled around in a question, but she didn't shout it, because as soon as they seemed to figure out what was happening, Franziska was gone, hurrying out into the bitter cold.

The video continued to play, von Karma's smirk growing wider as Edgeworth's shoulders hunched and he put his head in his hands. Whatever reminder von Karma was delivering was killing the man as sure as a bullet, and it was even more painful to watch. Nick watched silently as Kay muttered something squeakily about sending a text message to Franziska later. On the video, von Karma apparently finished, rising, calling to be taken back. Disposing of Edgeworth as one would a piece of trash. He sat there in the silence even after the prisoner had gone. Thankfully the video cut out shortly after.

"Um." Kay cleared her throat. "I, uh... Gummy gave me the phone number of someone the police department uses as a translator, sometimes. I'm going to call them tonight. See if they can figure it out, or get back to me in a couple of days, I guess, since it's New Year's..."

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" Nick ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back into its usual spikes and bringing himself back to the present. He reached over to firmly close the little DVD player. "Listen, Kay, when you get ahold of them, tell them to send the bill to my office."

"...A-are you sure? I mean, I could probably figure out -"

"Yeah, I'm sure." He forced a smile to his face, and saw how she relaxed. "Whatever rush charges they want to add are totally fine. Just tell me when you know what it means, all right?"

"Absolutely."

They were interrupted by a buzzing followed by a ringtone of classical music - a heady rush of the string section leading the charge. Both of them jumped, checking their own phones before realizing the source of it. Franziska's handbag, left behind in her haste. At the top was her cell phone, the name of the caller clearly visible.  _Wölfchen_.

Several blocks away, a sobbing Franziska hurried through the snow with aimless purpose before finally, in a pool of lamp-light, seeing a rather wolfish man on his cell phone. They spotted each other and he broke into a run while she jogged as well as one could in even the most practical high heels. Her hands, ungloved and going white from the cold, still hovered around her face, ready to hide such a shameful act as crying. His arms were already open wide. Even if she simply leaned into him, unsure of how to ask for an embrace, or perhaps simply too exhausted to do so, his arms wrapped around her. And on that cold, mostly-deserted city block, for a moment, Franziska von Karma was content to take comfort in Shi-Long Lang's arms.


	10. Auld Lang Syne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sometimes avoid TWs and similar for sake of not ruining story twists, but: a big TW for explicit mentions of child abuse here. Please tread carefully if you are triggered by such things!

"Papa had to be lying."

She hadn't stopped adamantly repeating that in various wandering ways. Not since before they got into his rented black SUV. Now they were several miles down the road, and Franziska was clutching at the air as if her fingers desperately wanted something to hold and wind themselves around. Maybe it was a good thing her luggage, and her whip, had been lost by the airline.

"He had to have some reason, to... to lie like that. I don't know why. Maybe - there's got to be some logic to it that I'm just not grasping. He had to be lying. He had to be."

Shi-Long wished that he could say this was the first time he had encountered someone talking in circles like this. Fairly common thing, actually. He wasn't the wide-eyed new recruit anymore. He'd thought himself so tough back then, after a handful of years of wild rebellion, but the first homicide crime scene had proved him wrong. Now he wasn't so surprised. Not quite jaded, but on his way there.

"Some sort of end-game strategy. I'll figure it out when - when my head clears."

Denial. Kubler-Ross model. First stage. Next would come anger, and then he would be exceptionally glad that her whip was lost. Then bargaining, depression, acceptance. Maybe not the most traditional application of this pattern, but close enough that he could pick out the tune and hum along. The professional in him was noticing all of this, mentally ticking off each check-box, detached and observing.

Fortunately, the rest of him realized that Franziska needed space to talk.

"It had to be something Miles discussed with him before. Something - some plan -" She sucked in a quivering breath, bringing a hand up to claw at her hair, tugging her bangs. "This is why they spent so much time together, isn't it? It - it has to be - if they could have just  _told_ me, I - I could have been smart enough to follow, but Miles and Papa always had to meet alone, damn him,  _damn him_ \- almost every day at home, I could have killed him if I thought Papa would just treat me the same -"

He had picked up on the odd strain of her voice. And it made him hit the brakes on the car, even though the yellow light was long enough for him to have slipped through the intersection. The jerk forward cut her off.

"Franziska." His voice was low and serious. "You need to listen to yourself." The small noise of a start of a word came past her lips, but as the red light seeped pale through the windshield, he turned to glare at her.

"I..."

When this first began, the glares and grimaces and arguments had been a game, and they were both very conscious of this. But this was different. His tone was as sharp as a handler's sharp tug to a working dog. "You just said that you are jealous of a victim because he was molested and you were not."

Careful, deliberate language. English was not a mother tongue for either of them, and he deliberately did not say any names, keeping cool, professional, detatched. And underneath the sharp lines of his glaring eyebrows, Franziska could see something in his eyes that scared her.

And just outside, the light turned green. Neither of them noticed.

It was not viciousness or harshness that scared her. It would have been much easier if Shi-Long Lang had just stayed the stupid boorish agent that she immediately assumed him to be. But in among those increasingly half-hearted promises that it was just after-hours fun and the whispered midnight conversations across the pillows, something had changed. He'd become her Wölfchen and things had gotten terribly, terribly  _complicated_. And now his eyes were full of liquid, pained concern.

Someone behind them honked. Shi-Long obliged them by turning back to the road and gradually accelerating away from the light. The facade she had been constructing of conspiracy theories was already delicate enough and now it shattered completely. She knew exactly what she had heard from her father's lips.

Wordlessly, she crumpled forward in her seat, sobbing hard. Half a mile down, Shi-Long reached over to put a hand on her back, rubbing gently even as she cried.

* * *

Phoenix had been mostly surprised at the translator's willingness to do a rush job, especially with Kay holding her phone up to the recording and the translator emailing them a transcript within fifteen minutes. He wasn't looking forward to the bill, he supposed, but apparently the dialog had been clear and simple conversation was the most basic of services. A good business transaction. He'd printed out the company's contact information and filed it for later - a holdover of Mia's old habits and preference for hard copies.

Maybe still being in that mindset made him go to the office. His own apartment was all of three blocks away, but instead of heading toward it, he had made a detour to a corner store for a tiny bottle of cheap champagne and various snacks. It was New Year's, after all, so wasn't he entitled to something like that? And now he sat on the sofa, having turned around the computer's screen. Maya had shown him some widget to watch television on it. He was fairly certain it was fifteen different kinds of illegal, and had told her as such with stern disapproval. But he figured that all the news outlets were broadcasting it online anyway, so no real harm done.

Somewhere else in the city, a crowd in colorful hats and mittens pulsed and waved as if one. Some reporter who was all shining white teeth was happily chattering away over something that seemed very inconsequential from his perch on the couch.

Kay had emailed the transcript to him immediately, of course. And he'd scrolled through it at the computer, wondering if he should look or not half a second after opening it. And now it was up on his smartphone. He'd already read it through twice, each time having to stop and look up for a few seconds after hitting a few of von Karma's damning statements. Maybe part of him liked torturing himself with this information. Maybe part of him was hoping that it would change and all be a funny misunderstanding that they could have a great big laugh over like the last few minutes of a sitcom episode. 

The translator had, without names, simply labeled them 1 and 2. A sensible choice, but the knowledge he had that she didn't was smothering him. His thumb twitched, flicking at the screen, pushing the text along.

_1: Are you forgetting that I made you who you are, down to every detail, boy? Down to who you dream of being fucked by? I made sure you love the taste of cock. A labor of love, really, corrupting you like that. Making you so flawed was my greatest masterpiece. My greatest revenge, making sure Gregory Edgeworth's little boy was a pervert._

He always had to look up after that line. Imagining it in von Karma's voice was not as hard as he hoped it to be. His mind knew very well what was being hinted at, and it made him feel sick to his stomach even as he carefully erected fences in his mind to keep his imagination from leaping forward. Nick was used to visualizing crimes, from either confessions or crime scenes; he knew how to pick apart testimonies. But he would really have rather had a nice murder instead.

_1: My God, imagine if your father could see you now!_

Another breath, and a pause. He looked at the pock-marked ceiling tiles. Counted a few of them. From the computer-turned-television came the sound of cheering sweeping over the audience.

_1: And don't look so innocent. Both of us know that violence like this goes in cycles, once it's started. And now that I have made sure such a cycle has begun, it's only a matter of time until you're brought down from your lofty office by scandal, hm?_

The countdown was getting closer to midnight, he guessed. No dropping bauble like Times Square, but celebration nonetheless.

_1: I wonder just how young you will prefer them, Miles. In any case, you will always remember: I might be gone, but you will always be my whore, won't you, boy?_

That was enough. The text hadn't changed, no matter how he kept hoping that it would. It was the missing evidence he had been looking for, though. Even if part of him wished he hadn't found it, the rest of him was satisfied. They had the whole picture now, or as close to it as they could get without Edgeworth's cooperation. Couldn't have been more clear even if it had been a smoking gun or a set of fingerprints. Keeping professional about this, he thought, was a good way to cope, at least right now.

Not that he had any idea what to say to Miles on a personal level, anyway. That twisting sympathy cringing in his heart, tearing itself into knots, was not one that was very suitable to be put into words. 'I'm sorry' seemed so shallow and cheap, like trying to turn a puddle into the ocean. He wanted to say all those crashing waves but only had words for a stagnant shallow algae-filled slick that barely justified wearing rainboots.

People were chanting. "Five, four, three, two...!"

The actual moment of the new year was drowned out by screaming. "Happy new year to you too, Charley," he said tiredly, lifting the tiny bottle of champagne to toast the plant in the corner. It didn't answer, of course, but the plant made as good of a new year's date as it did an office assistant.

"Should old acquaintance be forgot..."

The new year felt very much like the old one, he decided.

* * *

 And some time before midnight, a black SUV slid through traffic as easily as an eel through seagrass.

"Franziska, do you trust me?"

Shi-Long seemed to realize what a loaded question that was after he asked it. "I'm not going to go jumping over opening drawbridges or anything. Or chasing down criminals. Nothing dangerous. ...I suppose 'trust' is a bit too strong. What I'm asking is if you'll humor me."

She had mostly cried herself out, sobbed as much as she could tonight, but her breaths were still small and shuddering and her throat choked. Instead she managed something between a nod and a shrug. Shi-Long smiled at her, looking away from the road, and moved his hand off the gear shift to her shoulder a squeeze. She tucked her knees closer to herself, folding over in the seat, shying away from the outside world while the last few fits of crying trickled out of her.

He left the key in the ignition, leaving the car pleasantly warm, when they finally rolled to a stop in a well-lit parking lot. "I'll be inside picking up a few things. Don't worry, I won't be long."

Franziska waited until he was sure to be gone before raising her head, letting out a long slow breath. The parking lot was quiet this late at night, rimmed by patches of white snow sticking to the landscaping around it. A gaudy sign helped to light up the night.  _Superbig Mart._ Ah, right. One of these garishly large stores that attempted to sell everything it possibly could at once. Apparently this one even had a liquor store attached to it. Maybe that meant Shi-Long would pick up a decent champagne for whatever he was plotting. He was absolutely ridiculous - she could see him just entering now, having gotten a running start before perching on the back of a shopping trolley left out between two parking spaces, coasting on in with minor childlike glee.

She was still sniffling but at least that was manageable. It took her a moment of pawing around for her to find the switch to turn the inside lights on, and a moment more to pull down the sun visor to use the mirror on its opposite side. Ugh. Hair a mess, eyes red, lips chapped and completely unpainted. No, this would not do. She had been intending to do her makeup at the last minute so it was as fresh as possible when he came, and the fact that he actually saw her in such a state was completely unacceptable. She would just have to -

"Scheiße!"

Her handbag wasn't there. Of course. Now she remembered. It hadn't been in her hands running outside. But no handbag meant no phone, no makeup pouch, none of the other dozens of resources she kept with her...

Franziska took advantage of the fact that she was alone to scream into her hands. It didn't especially help. In fact, when she let her hands drop, her appearance seemed to look even worse despite any kind of logic or reason. If Lang was still here, she probably would have requested for him to at least bring back a little eyeliner and tinted chapstick. Then again, bad things seemed to happen when men were left to shop for makeup. ...Were the bags underneath her eyes really that large? Whenever she thought she had seen every miserable detail, something else cropped up.

Maybe it was for the best. Wouldn't do to try and do her makeup in a moving car anyway. Even if she had gotten good at having a steady hand, ever since age thirteen, when Papa had declared that since she would soon be seen in court, she had to equip all the details of womanhood she could and wear them like armor. He had handed her a large box set without ceremony and told her to get to it. All the different kinds of makeup were surely some other thirteen-year-old's dream, but to her it was merely intimidating, and she felt a little sick to her stomach trying to sort through everything. Thank God a little flyer of how to achieve the 'latest looks' was at the bottom of the case. After a half-hour she had finally gone downstairs, feeling mildly confident, and Papa had been waiting for her. He looked up at her, and then pulled a face, clucking his tongue. "Unacceptable. I did not buy you a gift just to be mocked, Franziska. Go upstairs and do it properly." She bit back tears and hurried upstairs, wiped her face clean and tried again. "Even more miserable than before.  _Again,_ Franziska. Though it seems I will have to hold your hand and step you through the process. Just the eyeliner first." She'd cried a little in the safety of the bathroom before pulling out the eyeliner and trying yet again. "No. The left's five millimeters longer than the right. Again." And she had gone back upstairs once more. Over and over, piece by piece, until she was perfect, because that was all a von Karma should ever be. The makeup remover, used so frequently, had left her face red as if sunburned, and her teenage face decided that the best way to react was to break out in pimples. Papa had told her that she was confined to her room because of looking so unsightly. She'd obeyed.

That bitter memory scurried over her thoughts as she looked at her dim reflection in the mirror. And she wondered if Papa had been seeing something more sick and depraved than just his daughter's face when telling her again and again to look not like a girl, but a woman -

She shut the sun visor in one quick and violent motion.

Queasy now. Her stomach always got upset after she cried. And a little headache, just at the top of her spine. She hated crying.

So she curled up again and waited, desperately trying to clear her head, or at least replace the current swirling thoughts with something less painful and sickening. She had almost succeeded when she was aware of the back of the rental car opening, Shi-Long shuffling bags into the back. As soon as he glanced over at her, he apparently tried to move as quietly as possible, closing the door gently. She was not expecting to then be greeted with a blast of cold air as he cracked open her door. Some animal instinct told her to stay still, so she did, feigning sleep mostly to see what he would do.

Franziska definitely had not predicted that he would reach out to take one of her feet, guiding the shoe very delicately off it (to the relief of her half-formed blisters). It made her raise her head in curiosity, sniffling a little, especially to see him pop a pleasantly fuzzy polka-dotted sock on her foot.

"...What are you doing?"

"You were limping a little. Favoring your right foot. Haven't really broken into these shoes yet, I guess, so I got you some socks, and some new shoes." He craned his head a little to look up at her and give a crooked, sneaky smile. Decadently, she stretched her toes out, letting him do the work of taking her other shoe off and replacing it with a fuzzy sock. The plastic of the bag at his wrist made small crinkling noises as he reached into it, pulling something out - and Franziska couldn't help a low laugh leaping out of her from somewhere deep in her belly.

"You got me  _kitty slippers?_ "

"Well, you can have the wolf ones if you want. I got two pairs." He slipped one on her foot and she wiggled her toes. Admittedly, they were cute, and  _very_ comfortable. He grinned and offered her the bag for her inspection, and she couldn't help another tired laugh.

"Those are siberian huskies, you fool."

"Nope, they are definitely, absolutely wolves." He twisted his head around to grin at her. And she found herself smiling back, however tired her smile was. And as he stood up he leaned in to kiss her ever-so-gently on the forehead, there merest brushing of his lips across her skin.

"You doof."

"What? Just a doof?"

"You're not dignified to be a full and proper doofus yet." She stuck out her tongue at him for a moment before hiding her head in her arms again, grinning in secret. He stuck his tongue out right back at her, chuckling a little as he walked around to the driver's side door once again.

The heaviness of what she had learned still tugged down her mind, but perhaps for a little while, she could push it to the side. It was a Gordian knot that she would sit down and try to pick apart at some later time. For now she understood exactly what Shi-Long was trying to do, and she appreciated it. With a little cooperation, he could help lift the yoke of guilt off her shoulders for the night.

Well. It was worth a shot, anyway.

* * *

 

"Doesn't that sign say  _no camping_ along with  _no vehicles beyond this point?_ "

"Did it? Whoops," Shi-long said breezily with the sort of tone that indicated he fully knew the sign was there and just didn't acknowledge it. The trees near the bank of the lake were thankfully sparse enough for the SUV to drive along with only the occasional tight squeeze. In the rear-view mirror, Franziska could see bright lights fading; apparently trying to keep up publicity of possible winder Gourdy sightings, the lake's event organizers had come up with a New Year's party. Apparently there were plenty of vendors and a good crowd in the small plaza by the shore, but Shi-Long had quite pointedly turned away from it and driven the other way. She was secretly glad for it. A crush of stupidly happy people was something she wasn't sure that she could stomach.

Another series of distant pops. The fireworks across the lake burst into starry patterns, momentarily illuminating the lake shore.

"Great, we haven't missed too much. Give me just a second, I'll get everything set up." From that grin, Franziska thought, it was obvious that if he had a tail it would have been wagging hard.

It was enough to make her turn around in her chair to look back at him as he popped the tailgate. "You certainly look pleased with yourself. When should I start worrying?"

"When we get past the cilantro vodka."

"The -" She pulled a face. "Eugh! Why would you abuse vodka in such a manner?"

"There's smoked salmon vodka, too. Just tiny airplane bottles, but still..."

"I know you're a carnivore, Shi-Long, but vodka is simply ridiculous." She let her chin rest on the top of the leather seat. "I assume there's more than just vodka."

"Of course. I couldn't forget the champagne. And I even got proper glasses for it! ...They're plastic, but still. Oh, and there's food, too. Something that claims to be a cheese and salami tray, trail mix with pretzels in, and potato chips, plain and -"

Too late, she'd already leaned over the back seat to pluck the bag from his hands. "Curried sweet-potato?  _Ooooh._ "

"What, are you going to stack some of the sausage slices on it and pretend it's currywurst?" He teased.

Franziska looked shiftily to the side. "Maybe."

Actually, the longer she thought about it, the more it  _almost_ seemed like a good idea. Not that much could compare to proper currywurst (ideally sold out of a van or tiny hole-in-the-wall somewhere in one of the worst neighborhoods of Berlin, because the more the architectural decay and fading graffiti spoke of unhealed wounds and poverty the beter the currywurst), but it would do. And the chips themselves were pleasantly earthy and spicy, not too greasy. As soon as she opened the bag in curiosity her stomach growled and hunger hit her with all the subtlety of a knee to the solar plexus. So she had completely forgotten about the fireworks by the time the next series of pops came from across the lake - and to her embarrassment, she squeaked and jumped out of reflex.

Shi-Long peered back at her, hands full of what seemed to be half a linens store. "You okay?"

"The fireworks just scared me, that's all," she admitted sheepishly, glad he likely couldn't see how she was blushing in the dark.

"Oh! Oh..." He immediately frowned in worry. "I'm sorry, I didn't think - I didn't remember that they probably sound like gunshots -"

"They didn't scare me that badly." It was kind of him to be worried, though, and she hoped she communicated that in her tone. Honestly most of the time the fact that she had actually been shot a few months ago slipped her mind. There was a fair amount of loss of motion, and pain on occasion, but it seemed far more like the sort of soreness that came from sleeping in an odd position than from anything else. And going from hotel to hotel on investigations gave her new aches with every new bed. It all blurred and faded together at some point.

She wiggled her toes in their new slippers before gingerly stepping out of the car. Almost immediately Shi-Long caught her in a new blanket, half-hugging her as he tucked it in around her. Perfect for the cold weather. She tilted her head to one side and resisted the urge to laugh as she finally caught sight of what Shi-Long had been busy making. "...The hood of the car? Really?"

"Hey, I bought plenty of cheap pillows, and we even have blankets. It'll be great." He grinned at her, offering a hand to help her step up onto the front bumper. As soon as she sat down, she had to admit that Shi-Long had a point. The heat from the car's engine radiated up through the hood and through the fluffy blanket he had spread over it all. Pleasantly toasty, and as good as being near a bonfire when it was so bitterly cold. He had even set the bags of food out (though she still carried the potato chips with her, idly snacking on them).

Another bright few pops at the edge of the lake. Half a heartbeat later the sky exploded into greens and blues. She was too busy watching to notice that Shi-Long wasn't staring at the fireworks at all, but instead her face.

"You know, I think this is the first time I've ever seen fireworks, really."

He also did not tell her that he already knew this. There was a certain childlike wonder that had wormed its way into her expression. He'd already been privy to something very few people had been able to see - Franziska von Karma the Imperfect, the Doubting, the Tired, and all else that was left after she let down her guard even for an instant. With most of the rest of the world she treated every experience like court. The more he learned about her, the more it made sense. She hadn't been given the time to be a child, what with becoming a prosecutor at thirteen. That was one thing he had to be thankful for - a childhood. Maybe he had his youth cut slightly short, but that was when he was fifteen, shouldering the burden of his father's casket and guiding it out of the funeral. But at least he'd been able to watch fireworks. She hadn't - at least, not until this very moment. And a potato chip hung right near her mouth, her lips curling into a silent  _ooh_ , eyes wide, frozen as she watched another array of purple-blue explosions across the lake.

He was in love with her so much that it  _hurt_ , even if he was aware that a year ago if you had told him that he'd be admiring Franziska von Karma's face (the curve of her nose, the little beauty mark by her eye, the way her lips pouted) he would have cackled and howled. Falling in love with a prosecutor, much less  _her!_ And yet, here they were.

She finally looked over, noticing his staring, and blinked, quirking her eyebrows in a silent question.

Shi-Long shook his head sheepishly as if to say it was nothing before launching back into the conversation. "Well, don't let my mother know, or else she'll get triple the amount she usually does. ...I did tell you, right, that you're invited to the Lunar New Year celebration my family has? And by invited I mean that my mother basically told me to kidnap you. In a friendly way, but she totally mentioned duct tape and a car trunk." Thankfully, Franziska laughed at this. "So if you'd like to come, you'd be more than welcome."

"I'll clear my calendar, then." She shifted back a little more, finally reclining somewhat as if the SUV's hood were some Roman banquet hall. "So we're at... meet-the-family stage, then?" It was a shy and nervous little question, and Franziska did not have very much practice being shy and nervous.

"If you want to be."

"Well. ...I suppose you've met all of my family that matters when you met Miles," she said, aiming for nonchalant and ending up with a tentative bravery in her voice. "So it's only fair." He generously did not mention his increased wish to go find Manfred von Karma's grave and do something terribly rude to it. "As long as you don't make me eat blood tofu."

"All right, I can promise that." He smiled. Another blaze of fireworks. He managed to time the pop of the champagne opening with the next volley, and she readily took the glass from him when he offered it out.

For a long while they didn't need words. There was just the occasional small sound as they managed to pick and find something like dinner in among the things he had grabbed. He stopped at one glass of champagne but she went on to her second and third. If they were quiet and still, they could just barely hear the music that the fireworks show was set to. Their perch was pleasantly warm, and by the time the engine was cooling in earnest they were nicely cozy in the mess of blankets and cheap pillows.

Shi-Long stretched, putting his hands behind his head. Red and yellow painted the sky.

"Are you regretting it yet?" Franziska asked around a sip of champagne.

"Regretting what?"

She was silent for a long moment. "Falling in love with me."

"Not at all." His answer was quick and confident. "I mean, just look at the facts. I could do a hell of a lot worse than a successful prosecutress -"

"That isn't even a word, you  _fool_ -"

"- with a quite frankly sexy accent and an ass so perfect as to be rendered by the hands of the Gods themselves." Franziska shook her head, but couldn't help laughing a little. She had been bracing for a serious conversation, and Shi-Long had expertly anticipated this and decided to foil her plans. "Besides, even if it was a mistake - which it wasn't - I've done much more foolhardy things. Like that time I shaved off my eyebrows."

She had a hand up in the air as if about to stop him and try to turn the conversation towards the grim and serious once more, but at that she simply stared at him. "That time you  _what_."

"That time I shaved off my eyebrows." He looked to her out of the corner of his eye and grinned. "Definitely would not recommend. My mother had to draw them on every morning for a month, and the first time I got caught in the rain? Right off. I looked ridiculous." And the sky above them burst into blossoms of purple-red and white, reflected in the lake.

He wasn't quite offering his arm out, but it was close enough for her to flop down next to him, abandoning any distance between them to nuzzle close. "And why, exactly, did you shave off your eyebrows?"

"Well, at the time, I had bad taste in both soju and friends..."

And above them - rosy-gold starbursts, in tight clusters like falling cherry blossoms.

It was, despite everything, a good night.


	11. Home / Hold Your Devil By His Throat

The band had played themselves out with the last Auld Lang Syne a good hour ago, but at three thirty in the morning the Royal Whitcombe hotel finally started to gently escort the remaining revelers out. As effervescent and bubbly as the champagne they were full of, they stumbled out of the elevators, holding onto each other and laughing, exchanging whispers as frequently as kisses. But they all quieted when they saw Shi-Long and Franziska in the lobby.

Franziska was pretending to be asleep - and Shi-Long knew, but politely didn't call her bluff. Instead he snuck the occasional glance of how she was smiling as he carried her in his arms, using the excuse that he was trying not to wake her.

All of the upper-crust came down from their party glittering and giddy, but as they grew quiet, an unfamiliar feeling passed over all of them. Shi-Long's hair was messy, the bags underneath his eyes spoke for themselves, and his clothing was all wrinkles. Franziska was even still wearing the fuzzy siamese cat slippers Shi-Long had gotten her despite how they clashed with her plain grey coat. But everyone stared, going quiet in unfamiliar envy.

A flock of peacocks envying a peahen.

Shi-Long noticed, smiled, and easily ignored how tired his arms were from holding Franziska close.

\--

_It smells like dust and mold in here._

_You know this happens sometimes. This isn't your dream. You're just visiting. It's kind of a relief, in its own way, because this isn't some mystery you have to figure out or some gift of prophecy you have to unravel to make sure everyone is properly warned._

_But this house is old. Not a kind sort of age, either, but you can tell it hates you for being here, for being modern. The tiny bit of light coming through the windows is filtered by yellowing heavy lace. Even the gas lamps are frosted, seemingly only to keep the light from coming through clear. Everything is done in black walnut wood, polished to a shine, carved too ornate to touch or to even breathe._

_There is a model of a cathedral in the room. Cologne. You know that, somehow, because the person who is dreaming knows it. And it is dark, all spikes, like a bed of needles ready to impale the inadequately pious. Just like the house._

_It is smothering._

_The wood floor is cold on your feet, and it resents every step you take; there are rugs, of course, ornate things from the orient, but they are there to show how much money was spent, not to actually provide comfort. But you press on anyway._

_A red runner carpet courses down the steps, looking almost as if someone has bled a line of paisley. There's a body at the bottom. A beautifully turned ankle in a delicate embroidered velvet slipper is still propped up on the first step, above the rest, and there is a chalk line surrounding every detail, even the slim hands with fingers splayed to stop the fall that never connected properly with the floor. The engagement ring is ostentatious. The wedding band, less so. Long hair of soft teal is gathered up in a long braid, curled on the floor like a cut noose's rope. You've seen that color before - it's familiar to you. You cannot see the face of the corpse, in fact, there's not really a face at all, just a vague blur that brings concepts to your mind. Pretty. Kind. Mother. Yes, that's who she is. Mother._

_Somewhere in the great house, a clock chimes. You feel vaguely as if you should do something for the dreamer's mother, laying there at the bottom of the steps surrounded by a chalk outline, but you think that if you try to offer her soul any comfort the way you know how, the house will grow spikes and impale you for your impertinence._

_So you move on._

_There are voices up ahead. They are speaking german, but you can understand them just as the dreamer can. A little more light in the kitchen - not by much, but you can see it at the end of the hall._

_A little girl, her soft teal hair in two braids, is standing on top of a stool to better reach the top of the counter, is holding a knife and crying. Her father stands behind her, frowning, hands clasped behind her back._

_"Again, Franziska. I said two centimeters. That is clearly three."_

_Her voice is thick with sadness. "But Papa -"_

_"Again!" As harsh and quick as a whiplash._

_So she raises the knife again, the tip of it balanced on the cutting board. Her other arm is there, pressed against the wooden board. Most of her fingers have been cut away in neat slices. Almost like tiny cuts of cold salami. You can see every detail of the girl's fingers, like rings on a tree - bone, tendon, muscle. The rings of what used to be her fingertips have been set aside, swept to one step of the board. She's crying as she lines up the knife, cutting into the meat of her hand now, but fights to keep her eyes open. And she brings the knife down again. And then she wails as she does it - a child's anguish that makes fresh hot tears run down her cheeks._

_Her father leans over to inspect her work and sneers. "Acceptable. But the edges are ragged. Again, child, I expect nothing short of perfection."_

_She's crying so hard she can barely speak. "Y-Yes, Papa!"_

_"Stay here and continue practicing. I have business to attend to with your brother." You haven't noticed the boy until now, but there he is, with familiar grey hair, even wearing a familiar shade of maroon. He looks like the cravat he wears is choking the life out of him. Maybe it already has: he looks like a ghost. And the girl's father puts a firm hand on the boy's shoulder, clenching possessively, knuckles going white. "Now come along, Miles."_

_"Yes, sir." His voice is so very quiet it's almost lost under the noise of her crying._

_And they go. You don't follow him. Instead you stay in the kitchen, which has a different feel than the rest of the house - there are soft floral prints here and there, and even a little porcelain figure of a smiling milkmaid balancing buckets on her shoulders. Those touches seem like they've been kept almost as a shrine. Pepper and salt shakers that haven't been touched. Pot holders that are there in memory. You reach out and touch one, and the dreamer's memory comes to you - the teal-haired woman at the bottom of the stairs, but breathing, awake, smiling, taking something out of the oven to place it on the table, then singing a silly nonsense ditty about the milkmaid (named Greta) coming to eat the pastries when they were on the table, making the porcelain figure dance back and forth before putting it by the girl's place. Eat quickly, sweetling, or Greta will gobble them all up!_

_You wish this wasn't someone else's dream. You can't do anything here, and you know that. The little girl is crying so hard, and she wails every time she brings the knife down, slicing through her hand bit by bit up to her wrist. You desperately wish this was part of your dream, so that you could pick up the milkmaid and make her dance and bring a smile to the girl's face because Greta still loves you, sweetling._

_But there's nothing to do but wait, so you do._

_Finally the little girl is finished, having sliced bit by bit up to her wrist. Her hand is gone, so she has to balance the basket with its handle in her teeth as she scrapes all of the slices off the edge of the countertop. The last one is in, and then she puts it on the counter so that she may fuss with the wicker basket's linen lining, making sure the napkin's corners are all pointing out of it just-so, before she puts it in her remaining hand._

_The house is so big and so very empty of kind things, so she shouts. "Papa? Papa, I'm finished," she whines as she wanders down the hall. "I did all the rest perfect, just like you said." The last door down the hall seems impossibly large and solemn, like the entrance to some great temple, and she has to put the basket down to dig her shoulder into the door to get it to move creaking on its hinges. "Papa?" It is a study, all leather-bound books and a desk that seems more like a ceremonial altar ready for blood of the slaughter; it smells of stale cigar smoke and the fireplace which is the only light. "Papa..." Her father is not here, but she takes a few steps into the library anyway. There is something on the floor. Something wearing a cravat, and a burgundy suit, with grey hair, laying face-down. There is a chalk outline around him._

_"Oh," the girl says, very quiet. "Oh."_

_The house has demonstrated it is too unkind for little boys, and surely too unkind for little girls, so she takes up her basket and runs. Her braids hit the back of her shoulders. She is scared the bows will come undone and Papa will be angry. But outside there is light, even if it is filtered through heavy grey clouds, and there is forest. The house sits in a clearing, of course, with cobblestones paved all around it, but in the distance all the trees sit heavy and dark and surely full of bears and hunters and witches all ready to eat little girls like her but it is all somehow less scary than Papa being angry._

_At the edge of the grass she puts the basket down and wipes her eyes, still sniffling. Then she takes a handful from the basket - a handful of herself, her own meat and bone and sinew - and tosses it out. The second handful actually hits something: a great big wolf, its fur thick and dappled piebald with dark brown and snow white._

_"It's a treat, you stupid mutt," the girl says. Her anger doesn't quite work around all the sadness stuck in her throat. "Eat it." Another handful. You see a piece bounce off the wolf's face. "I said eat it, you - you foolish fool!"_

_The little girl covers her face, and when she uncovers it she is not little anymore, but instead the grown woman you know. Your age, actually, but she's always seemed so impossibly grown. Her mascara is running, and she takes a moment to look up at the sky and take deep, shuddering breaths, in an attempt to steady herself. She straightens her pale teal hair in its short haircut, adjusts the cabochon at her throat along with its silk bow, then her sleeves, then her skirt: she is in her court outfit, the one you are most used to seeing her in. But she does not have her whip. And her hands settle around herself almost in a hug, as if Phoenix has just pointed out a fatal error in her logic._

_"You're not even going to take a bite, are you, W _ö_ lfchen?"_

_The wolf sits down politely and looks at her. Not expectantly, not begging, not even menacing. Just quietly observing._

_So she turns back to the house. It seems so very large and empty, even then, black and terrifying, as gothic and solemn as the black forest around it, down to the needlelike spires of the fir trees and its rooftop. Like the model of the cathedral. Like Cologne._

_She looks, and two boxes are suddenly by her. The wolf takes a few steps forward and then sits again, now laying down, crossing its front paws, the very picture of decorum. "I suppose you've something to say," she says, sounding tired. "So go on."_

_The wolf says nothing._

_"Please," she adds._

_The two boxes beside her are full to the brim. One with tools - handsaws, hammer and nails, a screwdriver, bits of hardware, bits of spare wood, even a few tiles that match the roof. The other is full of bottles. You don't know what of. They are open, and the smell burns at your nose._

_"Please, Wölfchen?" Her voice is achingly genuine._

_The wolf wags its tail ever-so-slightly, and opens its mouth and lifts it skyward as if to howl, but its baying turns to a voice that you don't quite recognize. "All of this can be mended."_

_"But?"_

_"All of this can be broken."_

_She nods at this answer but doesn't seem satisfied with it. The house looms over all of them. You can feel it breathing down your neck, waiting to impale you on one of its spikes and add you to its grisly collection of prizes. The dreamer doesn't know you are here, but it does, and it is circling you, predatory, just waiting for you to slip. You are scared. But you know that you should be far more terrified than you actually are._

_The woman reaches up to her neck and undoes the silk bow to where it hangs at her neck, two limp ends of the same winding piece of cloth. And then she takes it, and tears it - the sound is as loud as a gunshot, and it makes you jump. She picks up one of the bottles, stuffs the cloth inside of it, and then produces a lighter from one of her pockets. It catches fire so very easily. And then she throws it._

_A second story window shatters, and the bottle explodes into licks of hungry flame._

_So she takes up another bottle, and does the same. Soon her neck scarf is completely gone, and she starts in on her vest - then her skirt - then finally she shrugs off her shirt completely. Every bottle is violence, but with enough of them, the house starts to crumble. By the time she gets to the last bottle, the house is in flames - great greedy yellow-red arcs, coming out one window and scurrying up to the next, billowing smoke black as sin. The house is furious, but the fire does not care._

_The dreamer - and you, by proxy - think of all the fire is swallowing down. Those chalk outlines, that model cathedral, the leather-bound law library. The box of hair-ribbons, the chest of Mama's jewelry you're not old enough to have yet, the crystal set of decanter and glasses that Papa always keeps brandy in. The cutting board, the knife, and the floral kitchen curtains. Greta the milk-maid._

_And the woman starts crying. She is now in only her underwear, but you expected something different, not a tattered old sports-bra and pair of boyshorts. You expected something elegant and matching but instead she is there in things that are comfortable, familiar. Things that she picked out instead of Papa. When you wake up and remember this your stomach will twist just a little, but in that moment you accept it, just as you accept all information coming from the dreamer while she dreams._

_The fire blurs and fractures as she cries and sees it through the tears on her eyelashes. The tears are for Greta, only for Greta, she thinks. Only for Greta, sweetling. And she's interrupted by something velvety-warm nuzzling her shoulder._

_And the wolf is gone, replaced by a horse that is nosing her gently. A horse with the same brown and white pattern. You do not know if it speaks in the same voice, because it is wearing reigns, but no saddle. The woman wipes her eyes and doesn't seem to mind, petting the horse between its eyes. She smiles even as the fire rages behind her and makes her back prickle hot from such a distance. This is the first time, you think, you have felt happiness in this dream - joy without reservation or some further sadness. Just the soft simplicity of doing something and enjoying it. The horse's nose is so soft and warm, the good sort of warmth that is not harsh and overbearing like the fire, but the warmth from another living thing. She touches it forehead to forehead, and doesn't seem to notice how her hair sweeps forward out of its immaculate style._

_It takes a running start but she gets up onto its back, running her hands through its mane and settling down, unfazed by the lack of the saddle. Instead she leans forward and takes a deep breath in. The horse's mane has been shampooed recently - with the special type reserved for the day before a competition. You know that through her, and quietly accept it, even that it smells good, though to you it is odd at best. But to the dreamer it is wonderful by association._

_The forest trails are waiting._

_The house can burn by itself, for all the woman cares. It can burn itself to ashes and then she can ride through them in great leaps and careful dressage parade marches. The forest may be dark, but it's a different sort of dapple-darkness, pinpricks of light making its way through the layers of trees - permeable, malleable, perhaps not so unkind to little girls, especially little girls on horses._

_You feel the wind in your hair just the same as the dreamer does. The roughness of the horse's fur on your thighs that you don't mind; the supple braided leather of the bridle that you barely even have to hold as the horse is so eager and ready to please. And the forest has more life in it than the house ever did - birds calling from branch to branch, things darting in the foliage. You - no, it's all getting blurry - she has always loved riding._

_This is deeper in the forest than the woman has ever gone before. Ahead on the path is a small stream, barely half a meter across in its tiny gorge. A reasonably-sized jump that she is sure her horse can do. But she pulls on its reigns, slows it to a halt, and turns it around in circles anyway. This is the farthest out she's ever gone - ever gone. She should turn back. Papa will be angry if she doesn't turn back. But she can smell the fire all the way from here, and it smells sweet like a bonfire or a barbecue, and that makes her grip the reigns more tightly. She goes in circles._

_Again, you wish this was more than her dream. You wish you could shout at her to go on, because there is nothing left in the house, not for her, not for anyone. But she can't hear you, and she pulls on the reigns, making the horse go in circles in her indecision. Her heart's loud in her ears, and for a moment you think she really is heading back as she guides the horse to trot back that way. But then she turns sharply, staring down the path and where it dissolves into shadows past the small creek. And her whip - you're not sure where, or when, she got it - but her whip is in her hand, and she takes a deep breath, bringing it down, bringing it down, bringing it down - each time it makes contact is loud as a shotgun -_

_"Schnell, schnell, schnell!"_

_She's bringing it down mercilessly on the horse's flank but every time she strikes the bright red mark and then the blood shows up on her thigh instead - and the horse is suddenly all speed, as if it has been waiting to unleash pent-up energy in one fierce burst - she's snapping the whip continuously -_

_"Schnell! SCHNELL!"_

_She lifts herself up, braces for the jump, and there's that moment of weightlessness, of heart-in-the-throat with all hooves well off the ground -_

_Then she's through, but she won't let up. The forest has dissolved into something else. There's pavement, and there's white lines, and the hoofbeats make an awful clatter and the horseshoes strike up sparks they're hitting so hard, but she won't let up. There's blood down her thigh, well worn through the skin now, but she won't let up._

_"SCHNELL! SCHNELL!"_

_One car horn screams, and then another, and another: it's the freeway into the city. Cars are swerving, and when they don't, she does, pulling hard one way then another on the reigns. They are going the wrong way, facing down each driver in a game of chicken. But she won't let up. Her voice is getting raw from the screaming, but she won't let up._

"SCHNELL!"

_A low bellow of an eighteen-wheeler's horn - it's dead ahead, tries to swerve, but jackknifes instead, twisting like a great animal that has broken its neck as its back stays straight, and it's coming faster, the trailer's heading right towards you, it's coming faster, it's tumbling mid-air, and she won't let up, she won't let up, and it's on you and it's THERE -_

\--

Several rooms away from Maya Fey, Franziska von Karma flinched awake. Her heart hammered in her ears, and it took a moment of clutching the cotton sheets for her to make sure they were real. She even reached out to pet a bit of hair out of Shi-Long's face as he slept; his nose twitched, and he snorted in a way that only someone in love with him could find charming. She did, of course, but recognized she only did because she was in that category.

A much better bedmate than an eighteen-wheeler crashing into her.

It wasn't like her to have nightmares. They were an imperfection, after all. A von Karma did not have time for anything less than a perfect night's sleep. But she was starting to distrust those thoughts more than usual, now, after she had noticed that they all came to her in her father's voice. And she quietly slid out of bed.

Standing and stretching felt good, and looking out the window at the cityscape helped clear her head. It was a long way from Germany to this city, after all. No big black mansions; no shadowy forest. But she shouldn't be dwelling on that, she reprimanded herself, instead going to get a glass of water. The tapwater was filtered by the hotel, of course, and therefore better than most bottled waters. Her throat was dry. That had to be it. That, and covers pulled down past her shoulders. Yes, that was the cause of the nightmare, and the only useful information that could be garnered from it. As long as she stuck to that, she'd be all right.

A low sort of grunt from the bed. "...'ziska?" Shi-Long mumbled. "You all right?" His accent was coming through with how sleepy he was, and it made her smile around a sip of water.

"I'm fine." One last sip, and she set it on the nightstand before turning back the covers. "Just a nightmare. My shoulders must've been cold. I always get nightmares when that happens. Just nightmares. Nonsensical things." He didn't argue, instead wrapping an arm around her, tugging her close to make sure the blanket was covering her before sleepily leaning up and giving her a messy kiss on her shoulder.

Franziska wasn't sure he meant to kiss the one with a bullet hole scar on it, but it still made her smile a little to herself as she settled back down into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: ...okay, I realize coming back with a Franziska chapter is kind of lame. But trust me, I've got this story in my head again, and we'll get to Miles and Nick soon, trust me! Thank you for your patience, everyone! ヾ(〃^∇^)ﾉ


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